okayphoneme 28 Posted September 10, 2019 Share Posted September 10, 2019 I discovered this phone a few days ago and I've gotta say: it's the first time I've been excited for a phone for a long time. I thought the days of the hardware keyboard were numbered, but it's really wonderful to see a company trying to keep the dream alive. So congrats and thanks to F(x)tec. I do have a concern though - and it's currently preventing me from placing a pre-order. My concern is the keyboard layout. From the product images, I see that the letter keys on the keyboard have been moved over to accommodate the symbol keys on the left hand side. But why have these keys been placed there? On the right hand side, symbols are spilling over onto the letters, which seems absurd to me! Are the product images showing the final keyboard design? Is there any chance the layout has been reconsidered, or that it might be reconsidered in the future? I can't buy this phone with the strange layout - I know from experience little things like this grate on me and turn into big annoyances over time. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
enPfzr4v 239 Posted September 10, 2019 Share Posted September 10, 2019 I like the layout because it means the qwerty keys are centered on the display. If you moved the left character buttons to the right of the qwerty keys, the keyboard would be weirdly asymmetrical and probably more difficult to type on. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
EskeRahn 5,421 Posted September 10, 2019 Share Posted September 10, 2019 I like the layout because it means the qwerty keys are centered on the display. If you moved the left character buttons to the right of the qwerty keys, the keyboard would be weirdly asymmetrical and probably more difficult to type on. I think the shifted QWERTY is great for languages without additional common national letters beyond A-Z. Though I would have preferred the digit keys to follow suite. That is: "3" not "4" should be above and between "W" and "E". I'm awaiting both a qwertY and a qwertZ variant, so will report back how both works for English too. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
okayphoneme 28 Posted September 10, 2019 Author Share Posted September 10, 2019 I like the layout because it means the qwerty keys are centered on the display. If you moved the left character buttons to the right of the qwerty keys, the keyboard would be weirdly asymmetrical and probably more difficult to type on. I see what you mean. Maybe that's the original reason for this design choice. Still, I really don't like having an extra key between Q/A/Z and shift/caps/tab, plus having symbols on letter keys just seems wrong. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
netman 1,424 Posted September 10, 2019 Share Posted September 10, 2019 The idea is to keep the letter keys more centered to provide more comfortable typing, whether this is effective I can't comment on as I have not tried (sooon...). There is also the option for a German QWERTZ layout version, which does not have the letters shifted like this however I can imagine it being objectionable also to have not-quite-qwerty as a layout. It's possible more layouts will be available in the future, but the photos shown definitely should be the final layout for pre-orders as far as I know. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
VaZso 1,997 Posted September 10, 2019 Share Posted September 10, 2019 Are the product images showing the final keyboard design? Is there any chance the layout has been reconsidered, or that it might be reconsidered in the future? Yes, it is currently the final layout. There is another layout which is not shifted, that is the German QWERTZ one for European users - I chose that one because I didn't like the shifted QWERTY keyboard and I would like to also use national characters. So I have found the German QWERTZ keyboard is currently the best option for me. Other layouts maybe come up or maybe not. If there is high demand for another one, they may consider of manufacturing it, but I would not wait for other keyboards to be available because I want F(x)tec as startup to live, so it is better for them to choose from existing options instead of just waiting... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
EskeRahn 5,421 Posted September 10, 2019 Share Posted September 10, 2019 You can distinguish the the new layouts from all the old ones by the 'cut outs' bottom left and right. These are to simplify disassembly of the phablet.. [attachment file=35598] Here from their twitter [attachment file=35599] [attachment file=35600] Quote Link to post Share on other sites
VaZso 1,997 Posted September 10, 2019 Share Posted September 10, 2019 You can distinguish the the new layouts from all the old ones by the ‘cut outs’ bottom left and right. Are there screws underneath them? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
EskeRahn 5,421 Posted September 10, 2019 Share Posted September 10, 2019 EskeRahn wrote: You can distinguish the the new layouts from all the old ones by the ‘cut outs’ bottom left and right. Are there screws underneath them? That is how I understand it - but I do not know that it is so. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Wheeljack 212 Posted September 12, 2019 Share Posted September 12, 2019 Fun fact: the "Pro1_German_QWERTZ.jpg" is the very first QWERTZ prototype with a one of a kind misprint of the keyboard (key bumps are on G and K instead of F and J). That thing is going to be valuable some day ;) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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