silversolver

Why? They're creating what we've desired for years but the big phone companies were too busy making what they thought we should desire instead. Helping them help us is how we get what we really wished we could have! :) I'll be lucky to have mine by Christmas (couldn't keep my preorder, had to place a regular order) but hey, when it comes, it's Christmas again. :) EDIT: I'm still using a Droid 4, for crying out loud. :P I am indeed that committed to having a physical keyboard. I'm using it to post this!

I'm in the US, but have yet to receive my preciousssssss.....er, my Pro1 yet. :O Also, @ken5457 who....how.....wha?????

I've torn down several of mine with no guide. Droid 4 is a very serviceable platform, and it appears that Pro1 was made with all the advantages of D4's design. For the record, I'll have D4s around for quite some time still as beater devices. I'm still using one as my daily driver right now.

Oops. I searched for something like that but didn't find it. Go ahead and delete this thread.

I know I'm a weirdo among most mobile users, but I keep my devices a LONG time. I have an order in for the Pro1, so nothing anyone says here is going to change anything in that regard, but I am wondering about parts availability. I have been swapping stuff in my old Droids for some time now; this has allowed me to keep them running long past when most people would have binned them. The screen is the same as some Elephone something-or-other, which means that it should be available. How about the battery? I assume the case and hinge are proprietary; will these ever be available as replaceme

Haha, pretty much. It's amazing how excited people get about having a latest thing that 1% different from the previous latest thing, and often has functionality removed. iCult members are strange to me.....

Having been using nothing but keyboard phones since I've used a smartphone, it won't change my usage at all. My current phone is a Droid 4, before that a Droid 3, before that a Droid 1, before that a Treo 700p, before that a Treo 650p, before that a flip phone lol. I basically use the Droid like a pocket laptop. I use K9 mail, Brave browser in Desktop Mode, and VLC player, and little else. I do not have the GApps installed at all, and hope that they can be removed from the Pro1, either with a custom ROM or just root access. I don't use "apps" for much; I use the desktop web sites. Essentially,

Haha, that weird mental image came to me too. :O Something akin to people camping in the Wal-mart parking lot all night and then trampling each other in the morning (one to death, actually) to get the doorbuster deals. Wal-martians........

As have I. I always store my devices with screen facing inward. Whether I have them on my belt or in my pocket, it seems like I always find something on which to bash the screen. Since I started storing screen facing inward, zero issues. :)

Your analogy is seriously flawed. The restaurant hasn't opened yet. No one has received any food beyond a few samples, but those samples are like nothing else available elsewhere, and as a result people have placed preorders for their dinners when the restaurant opens as a means of ensuring that it does open. People are understandably annoyed that the restaurant is not yet open, when the plan was to have it open months ago, but setbacks happen. The restaurant will open, and people will get what they've been promised. In the meantime, no one is starving to death. Expressing annoyance with

They are people too, and have feelings, and can be disheartened like anyone else. Encouragement makes the world better. If you're reading this, Mr. Chen, just know that most of us are grateful that you are doing this at all, and understand that setbacks happen, and eagerly but patiently await the final glory of a new portrait keyboard slider. :)

I'm sure F(x)tec will come through soon too. I had forgotten about the Cosmo, but I had previously dismissed it because it's just too big to be practical as a phone IMO. In my world it's more of a UMPC. Also, have you looked at the unsubsidized price of an iPhone lately? :O Come on, Pro1 baby! :)

Thank you for voicing your concerns politely, unlike some others. Where I think this line of reasoning goes wrong is that essentially you're asking them to take time and effort away from actually getting product out the door to give information that won't change anything in the end other than make a few people feel satisfied while everyone waits yet a little longer. Having worked in many a small operation, I know how crunch time goes; everyone does everything. I wouldn't be surprised if Adrian was doing assembly or moving boxes or driving a lorry (truck.) What information we have sounds like s

It feels like certain people are rioting in the forum. Venting frustrations politely is one thing, but villainizing and threatening people who are doing you a profound service for not doing it fast enough or giving enough details about the process is disgusting to me. I only disparaged an attitude I'm seeing, and not anyone in particular. Awesomeness is coming, people! Be excited and stop taking verbal potshots at the people making it happen. (In general; not saying you were, GR)

So I may have been a little grumpy last night. Technically, I didn't call anyone a toddler; I merely observed that some of you sounded like screaming toddlers, a sentiment which was more-or-less seconded. I did address children at one point, but if you consider yourself not to be one, that shouldn't be upsetting, now, should it? :) I think my point stands. These people are trying to make a device we've all been wishing someone would make for years, and all some people here can do is criticise them for not making it fast enough. OK, they've had problems and missed dates. It feels like they

Wow. Just wow. I have not lost any faith in F(x)tec as a result of this thread, but I have lost a lot of faith in humanity. Some of you sound like screaming toddlers whose parents didn't get them a cookie fast enough. Some others of you sound like very reasonable people trying to calm down the hyperventilating children, and I commend you, but I question whether you are the majority. I hope so. Wake up, children! This little company is attempting to fill a market segment that the mainstream phone companies have completely abandoned with a skeleton crew and very limited resources. Governmen

I second the motion for an official version of the OS without the GApps -- no store, no play services, no other Groogle crapware. I am slightly distrustful of the Android OS itself because it is a Groogle product, but without the GApps, it's actually pretty nice. I'm currently running Lineage 14 (Android 7.1) on a Droid 4 with no GApps and I love it. I install the few programs I like from APK files and life is good. I update them from APK files when I feel the need. I would adore an official ROM for Pro1 which is free of the crapware out of the box like my favorite unofficial ROMs. Many Buf

Even on devices which offer the suggestions with the physical keyboard open, I essentially never use them. I find it clunky to leave the physical keyboard to tap a suggestion, and frankly I type fast enough that I don't get a significant speed improvement from it. I just never found their presence disruptive enough to try to remove them.

I have had devices defaulting both ways and have never delved into the settings to try to find out for certain, but I am pretty sure that vanilla android gives you a choice on this.

StartPage actually does find it from pro1 although it's not the top result. So does Google, at least for me.

I question how many people use that just to type something into Google. LOL I agree having both present is smart just in case.

I think everyone types it that way anyway. There's not really any other way to type it in unformatted text. It's hard to find a name that's catchy and original these days because so many have already been used. Also, a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet. :)

We're dealing with engineers and software developers, not PR people. Let them do what they do and quit ragging on them for not making enough noise. LOL

I take back what I said about the keyboard on the P1 being a D4 clone. I studied the P1 keyboard more closely today, and realized that there are some important improvements to the P1 over the D4. The one that excites me the most is the right shift key, which the original Droid had, but the D4 does not, and I miss it. This looks like the very best landscape slider keyboard ever made anywhere by anyone. I can hardly wait. :)

Due to the nature of this company, you would have a better-than-normal chance of putting a request like this in a "special instructions" box at checkout and having it arrive that way, but I wouldn't bank on it. Then again, you probably know someone who will happily reflash it with the OS of your choice just for a chance to play with your new toy. :)