Community meet up in London

[FlyingAntero 869]

Would you consider setting up a livestream?

Livestream would be awesome!

 

[Hook 2,945]

All the initial feedback is on Liangchen's twitter feed.

 

Curiously, nothing on F(x) Tec's social media. I hope someone from here who attended comes by and gives a detailed account.

 

[richardlondon 0]

I hope someone from here who attended comes by and gives a detailed account.

 

I attended the event, my phone history is that I've had two Nokia E7s, but then had to switch to Blackberrys, initially a Classic and then a KeyOne so I was interested to view the Pro1.

 

I think there were about twenty people there, all in all, along with the guys from F(x)tec.

 

There was a brief intro from the team and then we had a hands on with the Pro1. There were I think five (or so) devices for us to get to use.

 

I can give specifics if anyone has any, but first thoughts:

 

I only used a limited number of apps, but there didn't seem any lag

Screen was bright, clear and sharp.

Feels a high end device, e.g. rounded edges to screen.

Good sliding mechanism, very reminiscent of the the E7.

Device seems robust, I did try to see if it flexed when closed/open and it felt solid; there didn't seem any lateral play when the hinge was open.

Good travel on keyboard, better feel I think than KeyOne, more like the E7. It is backlit but was difficult to see in bright lights in the room.

Transitioning from a narrow keyboard on a KeyOne to this was an initial jump but even in the short time I had with the device I was getting my speed up equivalent on KeyOne.

Will need to get used to having alphabet keys set in middle of keyboard, I was initially offsetting to the left by one key for everything, but I learnt to correct this. I have small-ish hands so I did find it quite wide to use compared to the KeyOne and E7, but I guess I will get used to it.

Great to have the arrow keys back on a keyboard, worked in the browser perfectly.

Tabbing and shift tabbing works in email application, etc.

The landscape rotation when the keyboard is opened seems to work fine, there were limited apps on the phone so I would need to play around more with it.

Good split screen function once you learn how to use, so would be good in landscape view, say with maps open in one half and messaging in another.

 

These weren't final production devices, but from what I saw I was impressed, and I think the majority of people there were of the same impression. There are obviously going to be personal preferences that the team can't accommodate, but I think the Pro1 is a great achievement.

 

[richardlondon 0]

Apologies for the poor quality photo but it was taken on a Blackberry Classic.

Here is the Pro1 lined up against my KeyOne (sporting a clear flexi-plastic case) for reference.

The two are pretty much the same size.

I wouldn't notice the difference.

[Sero 89]

I attended the event as well! My only experience with keyboard phones is having a Blackberry Q10 and Blackberry Priv. There were about 20 people there, free pizza and drinks offered. There was definitely a shared interest as we all had a collective whinge at the lack of good keyboard phones lately.

 

 

A lot of details have already been covered by tech journalists, but were a few of my observations:

 

Software

They're committed to providing Android Q, and to sticking as close to stock Android as much as possible. In addition, there is currently a developer working on getting Sailfish OS running on the F(x)tec Pro 1. As said above, there was limited availability for apps. One device had the Google suite on it, and I was happy with how Sheets and Docs were on the little thing. Did not find a device with MS Office so can't comment on that (would have liked to try OneNote).

 

One interesting point: the demo devices had Android P with stock gestures. When you slide out the keyboard, the starting point for the gestures does not change (ie. still have to swipe up from the ''bottom' as if it were in portrait). I'm not sure what the expected behaviour was here, but it was just something that I noticed.

 

 

Keyboard

The buttons have a decent click to them. The whole phone is a bit wide though so some of the middle keys were a bit of a stretch for me. With the keyboard tucked away, the device is about as tall as a Priv but narrower. As part of core Android, keyboard shortcuts for text editing work exactly as expected ie:

Arrow Keys

Ctrl + C, V, X, A, Z

Shift + Arrow Keys, Ctrl + Shift + Arrow Keys

 

 

Hinge

One of the F(x)tec people demonstrated opening and slamming shut the device over and over again and it held very well. I've been really interested to see how this hinge would perform. It feels very, very rigid -- every bit as satisfying as I imagined it'd be. There's a nice *click* from both opening and closing it and there's zero give when in either position. Took a couple pictures of the hinge:

 

 

[Swond 120]

Hook wrote:

I hope someone from here who attended comes by and gives a detailed account.

I attended the event, my phone history is that I’ve had two Nokia E7s, but then had to switch to Blackberrys, initially a Classic and then a KeyOne so I was interested to view the Pro1.

 

I think there were about twenty people there, all in all, along with the guys from F(x)tec.

Good sliding mechanism, very reminiscent of the the E7.

 

Device seems robust, I did try to see if it flexed when closed/open and it felt solid; there didn’t seem any lateral play when the hinge was open.

 

Good travel on keyboard, better feel I think than KeyOne, more like the E7. It is backlit but was difficult to see in bright lights in the room.

 

Wow, that is huge! Thanks for the comparison picture! Also have E7 so it is perfect to see that :) Don't you have also a picture when closed? Pro1 vs E7?

[EskeRahn 5,427]

Wow, that is huge! Thanks for the comparison picture! Also have E7 so it is perfect to see that :) Don’t you have also a picture when closed? Pro1 vs E7?

 

Just made a few quick ones with a samsung, not sharp, but you can see the size...

 

 

 

 

 

[attachment file=16619]

 

 

 

[attachment file=16620]

 

 

[michael.bosscha 142]

I see there's a screenprotector being used. Not entirely fitting, but I guess it works good enough. Does it impair the front camera?

 

Great to hear the good stories guys. It's one thing to hear from the company itself how nice and cool it is, it's another to hear it from the people who I consider to be the most hardcore when talking about keyboards. I'm not regretting my pre-order at all!

[EskeRahn 5,427]

I see there’s a screenprotector being used. Not entirely fitting, but I guess it works good enough. Does it impair the front camera?

The one I found here is a fairly mediocre fit, to put it mildly. I have not (yet) found tempered glass protectors with fitting curvature, just flat ones (and this even got a common cut out in the top for camera etc). There are various plastic ones with curvature, I have not tried these, as I wanted nothing less than tempered glass on this this hard to get specimen. Once it goes into real production, I might settle for less, and just buy a spare screen , for the bad chance of a plastic protector not doing the trick.

 

Personally I'm not a huge fan of Gorilla glass. It is a GREAT compromise if you do NOT use a protector, but I prefer a more elastic material, and then have a simple film of top for all the scratches that you replace regularly (e.g. monthly) when it gets too scratched.

As gorilla glass is hard to scratch, this means that it is also brittle. For other Gorilla glass devices I have used a tempered glass protector (cheap) and they have saved my real screen several time, taking the force of the impact when dropped. They usually cost £1-4 and I replace them about every two months, as some corner of it breaks. Or after a real impact of course. So got a pile in stock. (Though I have had one on my Priv with a broken corner for almost a year - I'm just being too lazy to swap it, as the Priv is no longer a daily driver....)

[michael.bosscha 142]

Thanks for the heads up @EskeRahn. I tend to hold my phones pretty well so in all the time I've had a phone, falling has happened a total of about 20 or 30 times, and at least half of that are credited to Nokia's. I hardly drop my phone nowadays, so I'm content with Gorilla Glass. It has to be said that the largest I've handled is an HTC One; the LG q6 I'm using now doesn't come close to the Pro1, so I'll have to see how it handles...