I had two BlackBerry devices for work, right about the time they were going away. I’d heard the keyboard was good on earlier models but it seemed like the quality had gotten pretty cheap on the later phones. The BlackBerry 10 OS on my last phone was actually pretty good, and probably would’ve kept them in the market if they’d launched it 5 years earlier.
My 2001-era Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 PDA had the best slide out keyboard ever made, nothing has come close at all. A CF wifi card brought it so close to being a smart phone before there were smart phones.
I would buy it today as a phone if they’d just remake the original with an updated linux with QT equivalent option and updated screen hardware.
I miss phone keyboards so much. I wish I still had a slide out keyboard
With all the craze to make phones super thin, soon they’ll be so thin you could add a sliding keyboard on it, and it’ll be thinner than phones of a year or two ago!
I loved my N900. Think it would be doable right now with that thickness.
They were so fantastic for gaming. I could actually see what was happening on the screen.
My HTC Desire Z (aka T-Mobile G2) got many years of extra use as a dedicated emulation machine for exactly that reason.
In mine, the keys stopped working reliably, but it was still my favourite Android phone so far
remember some of the older phones had a sliding keyboard from under the phone.
Hopefully that means somebody other than Unihertz will make a keyboard phone.
I don’t need it to be super high end, I’d just rather not own a Chinese made phone with all the data they send back.
There’s the FXtech Pro-1, with a slide out keyboard, apparently the hinge is very good.
But it’s pretty ancient by now and there’s still no successor… I doubt it sold well.
I loved my BB Bold 9000, but the physical keyboard did reduce the screen size to a rather small form factor compared to modern phones. And I dare say that swyping is faster and just as accurate, so even if there would be new phones coming out with hardware keyboards of the same quality as old BlackBerry’s, I doubt I would switch back.
I hope we see more keyboard phones. I’d buy an iPhone with a keyboard.
Look up clicks keyboard. Might be the closest you’ll get
Yeah I’ve considered it. But it’s just so loong.
So for 20 years, it wasn’t possible for anyone but BlackBerry to manufacture phones with the revolutionary technology of… checks notes… keyboards, and now that it is irrelevant to modern devices, is free for anyone to use.
Patents should be abolished.
BB being able to protect itself from the big players is actually a success story of patents. The 800 lb gorilla’s of the industry never made as good of a keyboard, but if they could have copied BB’s superior design, they would have stomped them in a heartbeat.
There’s a lot of shit about what happens for a dying company and selling patents and so forth that absolutely is scummy. Serious discussion needs to happen there, but calling for them to be abolished? That’s just naive.
Checks notes, that’s not what happened, no. Tons of phones had/have keyboards.
but only folding phones or slide out keyboards…or touch screen keyboards
Palm had front keyboards
Nokia had quite a few, the E-line (e.g E6, E63, E71) being some of the most “blackberry” looking ones.
BB didn’t have a patent on the idea of a keyboard on a phone, but they did (do?) have a design patent for one of the most optimal layouts and dancing around it was tricky and risky. Or you can just be Typo, directly rip off a BB keyboard, and act surprised when you get sued.
As someone earlier mentioned, unihertz has a few models with physical keyboards.
i looked into those myself. it’s worth knowing that they’re several Android updates behind, so the devices could be less secure.
I had an old htc vertical folder with a leather cased keyboard. If I had a version of that with modern hardware, that would be my jam.
Can someone explain how something as generic as a keyboard can be a subject to patents?
TL:DR patents are important, but easily abused.
Yes, I’ll try.
Patents can cover many aspects of design. Sometimes, these aspects are positive and deserve protection for the original inventors. Other times, the claims could be so obscure and ‘thats obvious to anyone’ that it’s a waste to protect them - but (sometimes ignorant) patent attorneys fail to do their research and award patents anyway.
It could be that the keyboard being below the screen in that form factor was considered novel. It could be the trackball used in the centre. It could be the two combined, then attached to a phone. It could be the shaping and ergonomic aspect of the keyboard. It could be raises or detents to aid location of keys for fast typing on a handheld device.
I have a Unihertz Titan and love it. I guess they skirted around the keyboard patent. https://www.unihertz.com/products/titan
It’s not three straight rows of keys with the other buttons on a fourth row at the bottom. That’s what BB had a design patent for.
Very nice, I didn’t know this existed. Looks very blackberry-esque.
I never had a blackberry, but gained a hatred of them. Not for anything the phone was, but at how bad at software they were. The blackberry software to allow them to read emails from the company mail server was an over bloated, buggy and slow POS. It would forever break and the solution was always to remove and re-add it which would take a day and disrupt email for everyone.
But some CEO “needed” to use a blackberry as it looked corporate.
It’s wild to me how hodgepodge the software was. It’s the software equivalent of the Ford pinto, great and then boom! But for a long time it’s all there was.
There were competitors, but nothing offered everything like the blackberry platform in the early 2000s, the (user facing) software and keyboard combo were nuts, and when the trackball was released (Curve? Pearl? Idk) it was like having a little computer in your pocket.
I used to be a mobile developer (mainly Windows CE, Android and iOS) but once in 2010 I got put onto a project producing a TV-guide-like app for Blackberry. I was absolutely blown away by how fucking awful the developer tools were. Even during the development phase, an app had to be fully signed before it could be deployed to a device and tested and the signing servers were almost always down or operating under a severe delay. Even worse was that the framework code was divided up into umpteen billion different modules, each of which had to be separately signed, so the more modules you made use of the longer your app took to be signed (I often found myself writing custom functions that should logically have been handled by the framework, just to avoid the inclusion of one more module). Some days, even a one-line change to your code took 30 to 40 minutes to get onto your device - or else it was impossible because the signing servers were completely down. They did have emulators but they were worse than the physical devices and everything still had to be signed anyway. I just got in the habit of making hours of changes and then deploying while I went to lunch and testing everything afterwards; definitely not a programming best practice but the only way to make it work.
The built-in UI tools were horrible and there wasn’t anything that could be used for a TV guide, so I ended up having to do literally everything with Graphics primitives - although that was actually the fun part of the project. The most annoying thing was the 16-bit graphics, which probably made a bit of sense in 2003 but certainly not in 2010. And of course Blackberry was crashing and dying at that point anyway, so my work was pretty much useless.
The scroll wheel was awesome, though. It allowed for a super-precise UI controlling aspect that just isn’t possible with touchscreens.
More like Research In Place than RIM
Damn, I wish I’d thought of that back then.
I give you my permission to claim it as your own when you finally get that time machine working.
Yes please I hate fucking virtual keyboards and haptic feedback.
I literally go out of my way to use shit like KDE Connect to not have to type on a shitty phone virtual keyboard
God I don’t know how anyone likes the haptic feedback. Turn that shit off.
Swiping is pretty cool though.
Haptic feedback maxed out plus the tap sounds with the volume turned up to 100% is the way to go.
“Boomer mode”
Might as well use a typewriter. https://youtu.be/o4nwe7cW_og
Tagtagtag tag tag tagtag tag tagtagtagtag tag tag tagatagtag
I’ve been swiping for years. I can’t believe no one else in my tight circle does it.
I can’t get my head round it.
It seems to work terribly on iphones, even with Google’s keyboard. (Source: one single iphone which was entirely uncooperative.)
Try going a little slower. That always makes it more accurate for me.
Start with swiping not too fast and keep track on prediction bar, you often don’t have to swipe the whole word. You can take breaks mid-swipe, no problem.
Give it a try, it’s all I use anymore.
I’ve always swiped but somehow just installed voice to text last week. Game changer!
I’m in too many places where chatting to my phone wouldn’t go over well.
Ah that makes perfect sense. I’m alone for much of my day.
I fucking love haptic feedback. They suck only when the system used is a motor with that circular half-weight thingy. The linear oscillating weight ones are amazing.
I like it if it’s really really subtle. Basically the minimum length vibration, which is 2ms on heliboard.
Anything longer, I find annoying.
I can’t even use the keyboard properly without haptic feedback.
I never tried swiping. Maybe i should look into that.
I hate tapping away on the glass but swiping works okay, until the phone decides a word couldn’t possibly be what you’re trying for. My most recent frustration was New Zealand, which of course worked fine this time.
I use a FOSS (ish) keyboard and it’s not very accurate, but all still way better than typing everything.
Boomers and normies appear to love it.
Check out Unihertz. Can’t offer any advice or if they’re good, but they look interesting.
Keyboard feels great to use but their current layout sucks majorly
I have a 60% bluetooth keyboard that I’ll use when I need to type on my phone. A pain to carry with me, but taking a whole laptop is sometimes even worse.
60% Bluetooth, but what’s the other 40%?
Dolomite
I’m 40% dolomite
It’s the tough black mineral that won’t cop out when there’s heat all about.
Potash
Concentrated power of will.
They’re on discount. You don’t have to pay for the extra 40% of a keyboard.
With our luck? Carcinogens.
Wired USB. If I get some time I’m going to put PS/2 or maybe ADB in it as well just for the fun of it.
(Just in case this is a serious question to someone, 60% refers to the keyboard size, indicating what buttons I have and don’t have compared to a normal keyboard)
Magic
Yea looking forward to this kind of keyboard XD
Urgh split keyboards are the worst. Better to have everything in one higher up central position with easy access to entry ports for finer fingering.
You can get these folding keyboards that will fit in a pocket, often have a roughly-cell-phone-sized case.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=folding+keyboard
Still another item to carry, but it might fit the niche you’re looking for better if you’re not happy with hauling a regular 60% keyboard. Larger than those Blackberry-style thumbboards.
I have the protoarc, and it’s awesome. Got it for using with my tablet when I’m stuck in a parking lot (long story) for several hours. Only trouble with it is that the design of the case means you have to use their charger, because the insertable length of the USB c is slightly longer than normal, and the case makes it so a standard USB c won’t fit.
I hate having to have multiple chargers, especially proprietary ones, so I took a knife and carved away the plastic around the charging port, and now I can use whatever USB c I want. Just thought I’d mention, because I’m sure it’ll void the warranty. Lol
tell me about it. i’ve recently been sort of forced to switch from android to ios (some special circumstance) and holy shit, the virtual keyboard is atrocious.
I would immediately jump on a blackberry keyboard phone when and if one ever gets released.
What keyboard do you use? They are not all the same
I can type 60-70 WPM on the virtual keyboard of my phone without autocorrect. While that’s nowhere near the speed of me using a regular-sized physical keyboard, I can’t type that fast on a physical phone-sized keyboard like a Blackberry one.
I know quite a few people miss these physical smartphone keyboards, but I’d argue they were never all that great. YMMV.
Finally we can begin to chip away at BlackBerry’s dominance.
They’ve had it good too long!
It’s why somebody make this. They too were missing the keyboard
I need this to be a slider.
Oh the sweetest raspberry, mother of jam, What is this abomination?
Looong loooooong maaaaaaaaaaaan
This was hilarious 😭
It’s a spiritual journey.
Clicks.tech keyboard case of you really want to know
$139!
It looks so flimsy. The size of the keyboard compared to the screen feels like it would be nearly impossible to type on it with the thumbs comfortably and without the phone falling out of your hand.
Edit: Oh no, I just noticed that’s a case. Than makes it even worse. I would not trust that thing to hold my phone in place.
I had a phone with a physical keyboard that small. Surprisingly easy to work with.
I actually have one and it’s actually SUPER secure. Zero risk of it sliding out. It’s plastic all around and not flimsy rubber.
I remember this. Was it a kickstarter?
I can’t find any mention of it being on Kickstarter, but here’s an early promo for it:
https://crackberry.com/clicks-iphone-brings-real-keyboard-back-smartphones
SEND IN THE CLONES!
I would unironically love that
That said, as a Canadian, it’s always fun to look back at Blackberry’s history and remember a time when a home-grown gadget was the star of the tech world.
Others that fit description were ATI Techologies (now the AMD graphics card division that makes Radeon) and Nortel networks, a maker of corporate and commercial telecom gear (including hardware routers and firewalls).
