A bit of qwerty phone history

[netman 1,424]

Someone else from the forum pointed me to this rather captivating intverview with Doug Kaufman about the decline of qwerty phones, thought it was worth a share on the forums :). It ends on "If you could have a Galaxy S4 with a QWERTY, I think people would buy that.", and I guess we're about to find out if people would buy an S9 with a keyboard :).

https://www.theverge.com/2013/11/15/5104704/i-come-not-to-praise-qwerty-but-to-bury-it

[EskeRahn 5,427]

Though I hope it will, I really really doubt it will be a smashing success selling millions.

But I definitely think there is a niche for it also in 2019.

 

On one side old dinosaurs like myself, that texts/mails a lot will welcome it as a long awaited return..

The big question if it will be manage to catch others that use their device a lot for entering text.

 

Apart from the obvious benefit of typing text and mails, I also see the Pro1 competing with tablets with keyboards and ultraportables, for those that enters a lot of text info, but do not need to also use it for e.g. sales presentations. I imagine doctors, and sales representatives visiting existing customers registering renewed orders and stuff like that. Or people inspecting various stuff, where they rarely do drawings but register text wise. Think e.g. health inspectors.

[netman 1,424]

The big question if it will be manage to catch others that use their device a lot for entering text.

 

I think the timing for that right now is excellent. As said in that interview people wanted iphones and galaxy phones back then, but now those are boring and everyone has one.

[EskeRahn 5,427]

EskeRahn wrote:

The big question if it will be manage to catch others that use their device a lot for entering text.

I think the timing for that right now is excellent. As said in that interview people wanted iphones and galaxy phones back then, but now those are boring and everyone has one.

 

Yes the folding sure could open peoples minds to what a phone is again.

The article is really old (2013, though revived in 2016), so old that they it neither include BB Priv, nor BB Key½.

[Craig 1,435]

 

The article is really old (2013, though revived in 2016), so old that they it neither include BB Priv, nor BB Key½.

 

Yeah, it was mainly written in response to the less than expected sales of Photon Q, the last landscape slider. So before Priv - you'll note galaxy s4 and iphone 5 are new models when that was written. I think the verge brought it back to the front in 2016 cuz of blackberry release tho.

 

 

[EskeRahn 5,427]

Yeah, it was mainly written in response to the less than expected sales of Photon Q, the last landscape slider. So before Priv – you’ll note galaxy s4 and iphone 5 are new models when that was written. I think the verge brought it back to the front in 2016 cuz of blackberry release tho.

 

Yup. And that one not really globally available. I think the last attempt was the SonyEricsson (Neo) Pro the year before.

 

Actually SE had a really interesting idea there in 2011. They released four spec-wise identical devices, including all with 854x480, that (almost) only differed in scale of display and device.

The compact Ray, the normal Neo, The keyboard variant of the Neo called Pro and finally the then ridiculously humongous Arc (I remember people laughing when someone used that huge plate for calls - today the 63mm would rank it a super compact...)

 

The Ray was really elegant, I used the Pro for years, and until a few months ago carried it around as a spare phone in my bag.

 

Ray vs Pro vs Neo: https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=3972&idPhone2=3779&idPhone3=3734

Ray vs Pro vs Arc: https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=3972&idPhone2=3779&idPhone3=3619

 

(Note that most sites incorrectly claims the Pro as 13.5mm, that is a typo, GSMArena has recently corrected their base to the actual 15.3mm)

[david 921]

Someone else from the forum pointed me to this rather captivating intverview with Doug Kaufman about the decline of qwerty phones, thought it was worth a share on the forums :). It ends on “If you could have a Galaxy S4 with a QWERTY, I think people would buy that.”, and I guess we’re about to find out if people would buy an S9 with a keyboard :).

 

https://www.theverge.com/2013/11/15/5104704/i-come-not-to-praise-qwerty-but-to-bury-it

 

Little did he know that there *was* an S4 with a physical keyboard at the time he wrote that article. It was called the Galaxy S Relay 4G. I just did a brain transfer from the one I was using for the past couple years to my last backup, identical phone. I've gone through about 5 or 6 since 2012, with one being dead on arrival (keyboard to screen ribbon cable only worked for a day and that is what has failed on just about all of these, with the exception of one being a broken screen). I sure hope the Pro1 comes before this one decides to die too! :-)

[EskeRahn 5,427]

Little did he know that there *was* an S4 with a physical keyboard at the time he wrote that article. It was called the Galaxy S Relay 4G. I just did a brain transfer from the one I was using for the past couple years to my last backup, identical phone. I’ve gone through about 5 or 6 since 2012, with one being dead on arrival (keyboard to screen ribbon cable only worked for a day and that is what has failed on just about all of these, with the exception of one being a broken screen). I sure hope the Pro1 comes before this one decides to die too! :-)

 

He he. Strictly the "Relay" was way closer to an "S3 mini".

See e.g. https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=4914&idPhone2=5125&idPhone3=5033

I think his point was exactly that there were no keyboard phones with 'flagship' specs, And by "S4" was referring to the "Galaxy S4" not the "Snapdragon S4" chipset.

[Gon009 70]

netman wrote:

Someone else from the forum pointed me to this rather captivating intverview with Doug Kaufman about the decline of qwerty phones, thought it was worth a share on the forums :). It ends on “If you could have a Galaxy S4 with a QWERTY, I think people would buy that.”, and I guess we’re about to find out if people would buy an S9 with a keyboard :).

 

https://www.theverge.com/2013/11/15/5104704/i-come-not-to-praise-qwerty-but-to-bury-it

Little did he know that there *was* an S4 with a physical keyboard at the time he wrote that article. It was called the Galaxy S Relay 4G. I just did a brain transfer from the one I was using for the past couple years to my last backup, identical phone. I’ve gone through about 5 or 6 since 2012, with one being dead on arrival (keyboard to screen ribbon cable only worked for a day and that is what has failed on just about all of these, with the exception of one being a broken screen). I sure hope the Pro1 comes before this one decides to die too! :-)

 

But the problem is that physical keyboard phones had sub-bar hardware and the article says about having a valid option of buying a flagship phone with physical keyboard. Galaxy S Relay 4G isn't a valid option, it was released many months after Galaxy S III but everything from screen to internal storage memory is inferior to S III. That's the problem. Same with for example HTC Desire Z, which was one of the most known QWERTY phone in my country, released almost a year after Galaxy S but with worse specs.

 

Pro1 will be probably a first phone that will give top-tier specs(except for chip which is still really good and the best I've ever had) and a physical keyboard. The only reason why I found Pro1 was when searching for valid options of having physical keyboard phones in 2019. Still, completely unknown company and the Pro1 has >24k preorders, I think it's quite a good result. The phone that should exist mentioned in this article is a Pro1 in my eyes.

 

Just my personal opinion, I think that in times of Galaxy S or Galaxy S II, hardware was much more important than now, I had many friends with cheaper Samsung smartphones in these days and these phones were running awfully, the Galaxy S was a completely different experience, much better screen and much better performance.

 

Though I hope it will, I really really doubt it will be a smashing success selling millions.

 

But I definitely think there is a niche for it also in 2019.

 

On one side old dinosaurs like myself, that texts/mails a lot will welcome it as a long awaited return..

 

The big question if it will be manage to catch others that use their device a lot for entering text.

 

Apart from the obvious benefit of typing text and mails, I also see the Pro1 competing with tablets with keyboards and ultraportables, for those that enters a lot of text info, but do not need to also use it for e.g. sales presentations. I imagine doctors, and sales representatives visiting existing customers registering renewed orders and stuff like that. Or people inspecting various stuff, where they rarely do drawings but register text wise. Think e.g. health inspectors.

 

For me it's not only writing texts and mails but also being able to command a phone with buttons again. I see that system integration with the phone is very solid and gives a room for using keyboard for things like unlocking stuff, opening apps etc. It's not really a big deal now like it was in times on WM6 because android is made for touchscreen-only but still a nice thing to have. Also, I'm sure I will install PSX and GBA emulators on Pro1 again.

[EskeRahn 5,427]

For me it’s not only writing texts and mails but also being able to command a phone with buttons again. I see that system integration with the phone is very solid and gives a room for using keyboard for things like unlocking stuff, opening apps etc. It’s not really a big deal now like it was in times on WM6 because android is made for touchscreen-only but still a nice thing to have. Also, I’m sure I will install PSX and GBA emulators on Pro1 again.

 

Oh sure it is wonderful to be able to have the keys in many ways!

BUT we should be honest and accept that the majority of apps out there are only optimised for touch, And for many the only keyboard 'support' there is, is what Android provides, allowing us to navigate and select with the keys.

 

Even a build in app like Settings, well it technically DO work with keys, but it is way easier to do almost all in it by touch, e.g. changing "Display [item] Size" under Display, I would first need to select the right part with Shift+Tab, then the slider by Up-Arrow, and finally move the slider with the lef/right arrows. It is SO much easier to just pull the slider... HAD it been optimized, the focus on entry would be the slider, so I could use the arrows immediately...

 

BUT you can have apps that does not work properly with touch were you actually NEED the keyboard. GSMArena has an app that (at the least in the beta I tried), when you set min=max on a search slider, and have them to the left, you can only undo that with a physical keyboard, as you can not select the min slider by touch, as it is 'behind' the max, and as you can not move the max, you are locked... *LOL*

 

I tried to make a thread here with apps optimised for keyboard usage. And I hope to see a lot of suggestions there, once the PRO1 hits the streets. :D

[netman 1,424]

The phone that should exist mentioned in this article is a Pro1 in my eyes.

 

Exactly how I felt, this article may need a followup soon: "qwerty rises from the grave to take the world by storm" :D.

[david 921]

david wrote:

Little did he know that there *was* an S4 with a physical keyboard at the time he wrote that article. It was called the Galaxy S Relay 4G. I just did a brain transfer from the one I was using for the past couple years to my last backup, identical phone. I’ve gone through about 5 or 6 since 2012, with one being dead on arrival (keyboard to screen ribbon cable only worked for a day and that is what has failed on just about all of these, with the exception of one being a broken screen). I sure hope the Pro1 comes before this one decides to die too! :-)

He he. Strictly the “Relay” was way closer to an “S3 mini”.

 

See e.g. https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=4914&idPhone2=5125&idPhone3=5033

 

I think his point was exactly that there were no keyboard phones with ‘flagship’ specs, And by “S4” was referring to the “Galaxy S4” not the “Snapdragon S4” chipset.

 

Yeah, you are probably right. Maybe I was thinking of S4 instead of S3. And yes, it definitely wasn't a flagship spec phone when it came out. I've been living with a non-flagship spec phone for 7 years!! 7 YEARS! LOL

[david 921]

david wrote:

netman wrote:

Someone else from the forum pointed me to this rather captivating intverview with Doug Kaufman about the decline of qwerty phones, thought it was worth a share on the forums :). It ends on “If you could have a Galaxy S4 with a QWERTY, I think people would buy that.”, and I guess we’re about to find out if people would buy an S9 with a keyboard :).

 

https://www.theverge.com/2013/11/15/5104704/i-come-not-to-praise-qwerty-but-to-bury-it

 

Little did he know that there *was* an S4 with a physical keyboard at the time he wrote that article. It was called the Galaxy S Relay 4G. I just did a brain transfer from the one I was using for the past couple years to my last backup, identical phone. I’ve gone through about 5 or 6 since 2012, with one being dead on arrival (keyboard to screen ribbon cable only worked for a day and that is what has failed on just about all of these, with the exception of one being a broken screen). I sure hope the Pro1 comes before this one decides to die too! :-)

But the problem is that physical keyboard phones had sub-bar hardware and the article says about having a valid option of buying a flagship phone with physical keyboard. Galaxy S Relay 4G isn’t a valid option, it was released many months after Galaxy S III but everything from screen to internal storage memory is inferior to S III. That’s the problem. Same with for example HTC Desire Z, which was one of the most known QWERTY phone in my country, released almost a year after Galaxy S but with worse specs.

 

Pro1 will be probably a first phone that will give top-tier specs(except for chip which is still really good and the best I’ve ever had) and a physical keyboard. The only reason why I found Pro1 was when searching for valid options of having physical keyboard phones in 2019. Still, completely unknown company and the Pro1 has >24k preorders, I think it’s quite a good result. The phone that should exist mentioned in this article is a Pro1 in my eyes.

 

Just my personal opinion, I think that in times of Galaxy S or Galaxy S II, hardware was much more important than now, I had many friends with cheaper Samsung smartphones in these days and these phones were running awfully, the Galaxy S was a completely different experience, much better screen and much better performance.

Oh, I agree about it not being a flagship at the time. I also had the Desire Z (called the G2 by T-Mobile) and broke the screen 2 times. I replaced the screen the first time and then didn't have time to replace it the second time, so went out and got the Relay. I've had it on my to-do list for 7 years to replace that screen so that I can get some pictures off the phone! LOL

 

I too was searching every few months for a new keyboard phone to come out. I thought I would have to give up and get a Pixel 3 and add a bluetooth thumb keyboard. I was even contemplating using an app that allows you to use one phone to remotely control another phone and using my Relay 4G for controlling phone in that situation, but the horsepower of the Pixel 3 for running the apps. Let's hope the Pro1 inspires more manufacturers to go back to the way phones should be -- with a physical keyboard!!

 

Yes, I agree. We've reached the point in phone technology maturity where pretty much all the phones are fine for 99% of the apps. The ultra high end phones might have an advantage for games or VR or other specialized use cases, but that's not what I use my phone for, so I'll be happy with the Pro1 and hope it works for many years (if no other keyboard phones become available). The same thing happened in the PC industry, where after we got into multi core class machines, it was no longer necessary to upgrade to a faster PC every year or two in order to run software.

 

It sure would help the phone industry (and us consumers) if Google's Project Ara would be re-born and we could upgrade the components of the phone instead of having to get a whole new phone every time. That was my last best hope for a keyboard phone, as I figured some company would make a keyboard add on.

 

 

[david 921]

Gon009 wrote:

The phone that should exist mentioned in this article is a Pro1 in my eyes.

Exactly how I felt, this article may need a followup soon: “qwerty rises from the grave to take the world by storm” :D.

 

I, for one, would welcome our qwerty, undead masters with open arms. ;-)

[EskeRahn 5,427]

It sure would help the phone industry (and us consumers) if Google’s Project Ara would be re-born and we could upgrade the components of the phone instead of having to get a whole new phone every time. That was my last best hope for a keyboard phone, as I figured some company would make a keyboard add on.

 

That was my hope too. But I guess there are too many money in planned obsolescence to allow for a user and environmental friendly idea like Ara to fly... ;(

 

One principal 'design flaw' with the Ara was that there were no modules that went all the way through the frame (or attached to the top). That would have allowed for better cameras, without them giving the device a huge bump.

[Siani_8 105]

EskeRahn wrote:

The article is really old (2013, though revived in 2016), so old that they it neither include BB Priv, nor BB Key½.

Yeah, it was mainly written in response to the less than expected sales of Photon Q, the last landscape slider. So before Priv – you’ll note galaxy s4 and iphone 5 are new models when that was written. I think the verge brought it back to the front in 2016 cuz of blackberry release tho.

 

I would have bought the Photon Q if the specs weren't bottom tier for that time. That was part of what killed physical sliders...in the end, they wouldn't put them out with high end specs so if you wanted flagship specs/quality, there were slabs and that's it.

[EskeRahn 5,427]

I would have bought the Photon Q if the specs weren’t bottom tier for that time. That was part of what killed physical sliders…in the end, they wouldn’t put them out with high end specs so if you wanted flagship specs/quality, there were slabs and that’s it.

 

Yup. It is the same story with phone sized devices.

You basically can not buy a phone with flagship specs anymore, only phablets!

And there have been no QWERTY-slider with anything close to flagship spec since the SonyEricsson Pro. in 2011.

 

Thus the request for a flagship speced PHONE with a slider keyboard (that I would prefer) is further away from reality.

 

BUT if the Pro1 get a smashing success, we just MIGHT get successors, and hopefully one of them would be shrunken to 5¼" display, and thus to phone size - and still have good specs!.

 

Personally I do not get why manufacturers think that if you want anything but an oversized phablet, you most likely also want it to be a mediocre device...

 

For the Pro1 I DO understand, that they want to 'test the waters' first to see if QWERTY interest can be woken again, as currently the risk of a fully flagship speced variant of the Pro1 would be very expensive (few buyers means fewer to share the development cost, thus rising the price further).

[Gon009 70]

david wrote:

It sure would help the phone industry (and us consumers) if Google’s Project Ara would be re-born and we could upgrade the components of the phone instead of having to get a whole new phone every time. That was my last best hope for a keyboard phone, as I figured some company would make a keyboard add on.

That was my hope too. But I guess there are too many money in planned obsolescence to allow for a user and environmental friendly idea like Ara to fly… ;(

 

I had no hopes in Project Ara from the beginning, a company of that size wouldn't release a device that could be just upgraded for a less money than buying new one. While it sounds amazing, no big company would do something like this because, as you said, money.

 

I myself, had lost my two side buttons in my 2-year old Samsung phone, each button was holding on a two 1mm X <1mm X ~0.3mm plastic pieces and these just broke off, probably by not pressing the button exactly on the middle so there was more stress on one of these pieces. Here's how the broken button looks compared to micro-USB(for imagining size of it): https://imgur.com/a/ioi7gkE , notice the small piece on the bottom and lack of it on the top. How to fix it? It seems that it needs to be inserted from the inside, how to get to the inside? Only by removing the screen which is glued to the phone. I'm 100% sure that this was not a design mistake but an intentional one.

 

The fact that the Pro1 is built for being durable(hinges) and easy to repair is really a huge thing for me. Yeah, big companies would think that Fxtec is naive but on the other hand by doing phones like that, if Pro1 will be really that good as shown in all these YT videos, Fxtec will secure a small but extremely loyal community that will want nothing but a Fxtec phone as the next one. One could also say that Fxtec will be fighting to get BB users on their side. However many of these people are more fans of portrait keyboards than landscape ones, also some BB users prefer not having an Android phone. Another thing, there are people wanting an Android phone that can be used as a normal smartphone and because of BB screen sizes the only BB phone for that was a BlackBerry Priv. Finally, I didn't see so far on this forum anyone who's buying Pro1 after using exclusively BB phones from always, if there are people like that buying Pro1 then I'm sure that there aren't many of them. I see that people wanting to get Pro1 are people, like me, who just want a landscape physical keyboard again and were using either old qwerty phones or current touchscreen-only ones.

 

Still, I wonder what will be the future of Fxtec after Pro1 gets fully released. There are >24k preorders but I wonder how many of them will pay. Also, I wonder how many people would like to get a landscape keyboard phone but just didn't hear about Pro1 yet. Finally, I wonder how many people are there who are waiting for a phone to release and then decide to buy it or not after read reviews of people who preordered it.

[EskeRahn 5,427]

Still, I wonder what will be the future of Fxtec after Pro1 gets fully released. There are >24k preorders but I wonder how many of them will pay. Also, I wonder how many people would like to get a landscape keyboard phone but just didn’t hear about Pro1 yet. Finally, I wonder how many people are there who are waiting for a phone to release and then decide to buy it or not after read reviews of people who preordered it.

 

Yes only time will tell, but I'm sure that it is only us as the most eager ones that have bought it from pre-orders. I'm sure there is a large group that will wait for the reception of it, and most likely a much larger group that never heard of the Pro1 but could be interested once they learn of the existence (so help spread the message...).

 

From an egoistic perspecitve: The higher sales the Pro1 gets, the higher profit FxTec will make, and thus the higher chance of them producing a Pro2, Pro3,..... thus providing us with devices I can upgrade to later on...

[VaZso 1,997]

From an egoistic perspecitve: The higher sales the Pro1 gets, the higher profit FxTec will make, and thus the higher chance of them producing a Pro2, Pro3,….. thus providing us with devices I can upgrade to later on…

 

I hope F(x)tec will also produce Pro2, Pro3... later - and that also means it worth manufacturing earlier devices (Pro1, etc).

I also hope they will also make good quality phones which would make most of the users buying from F(x)tec again also if other manufacturers come up with similar phones.

 

So I hope they will have quality successors in the future and the company can grow but even keep producing quality products.

 

Still, I wonder what will be the future of Fxtec after Pro1 gets fully released. There are >24k preorders but I wonder how many of them will pay. Also, I wonder how many people would like to get a landscape keyboard phone but just didn’t hear about Pro1 yet. Finally, I wonder how many people are there who are waiting for a phone to release and then decide to buy it or not after read reviews of people who preordered it.

 

Yes, these people are definitely exists.

 

I have told people about Pro1 who I know the need of a landscape keyboard phone, but I also know others who may get interested if I show the real phone and even there are others who would buy a higher-spec but keyboard phone later, so maybe like Pro2 in a future date.

 

So I hope the best. :)

[netman 1,424]

For the Pro1 I DO understand, that they want to ‘test the waters’ first to see if QWERTY interest can be woken again, as currently the risk of a fully flagship speced variant of the Pro1 would be very expensive (few buyers means fewer to share the development cost, thus rising the price further).

 

I guess the SD835 is more of a last-years-flagship SoC but I doubt we will have complaints about performance. Myself I've been just happy with 200eur phones and a keyboard is litteraly the only thing that could make me spend 3x that amount, and I think many people think alike. Most people I am close with that have recent phones atall have one from the cheaper end with an SD6xx (625, 660), which seems perfectly adequate today. Maybe if they get really popular economy of scale will allow even faster SoCs while retaining the same price point, although I can't imagine the keyboard and slider mechanism to be cheap to manufacture. Bottom line being I think the SD835 is an excellent choice with the only downside being that professional reviewers and people who watch them too much are somehow very nit-picky about these things xD.

[netman 1,424]

Still, I wonder what will be the future of Fxtec after Pro1 gets fully released. There are >24k preorders but I wonder how many of them will pay. Also, I wonder how many people would like to get a landscape keyboard phone but just didn’t hear about Pro1 yet. Finally, I wonder how many people are there who are waiting for a phone to release and then decide to buy it or not after read reviews of people who preordered it.

 

Yep, I know definitely a few people who are waiting to see mine before handing their cash away :D. With how distinct the phone looks when the keyboard is open they'll get quite a bit of free advertising once it's out in the wild.

[Craig 1,435]

With how distinct the phone looks when the keyboard is open they’ll get quite a bit of free advertising once it’s out in the wild.

 

They should give us early adopters some type of referral bonus, i.e. get 100 people to buy pro1 and you get a free pro2!

[EskeRahn 5,427]

They should give us early adopters some type of referral bonus, i.e. get 100 people to buy pro1 and you get a free pro2!

 

Well I see it from another angle: The more we can get to buy a Pro1, the higher the chance there will be a Pro2, Pro3,.... when we want to upgrade...

[Val 75]

Well I see it from another angle: The more we can get to buy a Pro1, the higher the chance there will be a Pro2, Pro3,…. when we want to upgrade…

 

Also, it would be nice to get a discount if we buy a second Pro1 ;)