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In world without BlackBerry, physical keyboards on phones are making a comeback

66 points by thunderbong

by Bender

5 subcomments

The only physical keyboards I liked were the Danger Sidekick II and the Nokia 9000 both horizontal QWERTY. I was never a fan of the portrait layout of the Blackberry keyboards. I would love to see the Sidekick make a come-back provided the screen was not a touch screen or there was an easy way to disable touch. I rebooted a telco mainframe from a Nokia 9000. SYREI:rank=reload,reason="CV Updated" over telnet from the phone no less. Everyone around me stopped talking on their phone for 40 minutes.
To me the keyboards on iPhone and Android feel like they are from a different planet and made for garden gnome fingers but I did not grow up with these phones.

by brikym

4 subcomments

I've noticed the keyboards on iOS and Android are getting taller and taller with extra buttons for things like password fill with no way to disable these features. I run a word guessing game(Redactle) and there is almost no room left for the actual game which really sucks!

by VVertigo

2 subcomments

I used a Blackberry Classic up until last year when my provider dropped 3G coverage. It's probably a good thing as I never got phone addiction since the browser was unusable and didn't have the apps. I did get in the habit of carrying an iPad with me though for that: but at least then you only pull it out when necessary. I might have to check out the Zinwa retrofit kits mentioned in the article: I do miss the hardware keyboard when using the Android I replaced it with.
The Pinephone with the keyboard accessory was tempting too, but the software readiness (and older hardware) didn't seem practical as a daily driver.

by internet2000

3 subcomments

No, for the 5th time, they're not.

by btbuildem

0 subcomment

I've been futzing about with a vague prototype of a backcountry comms device (esp32, lora radio, gps) and initially was going to pair it via bt to a phone, for the use of screen / browser / keyboard. Long story short, small e-ink displays work really well in daylight, and blackberry keyboards (and other tiny form factor ones) can be got off ali[baba|express] for relatively cheap.
It doesn't take much to throw in a LTE modem, sim card reader, a mic and a speaker -- suddenly you have a phone!
I'm don't really have a point here, and I don't know exactly where my meandering project will eventually end up -- but I really like the "own the full stack" aspect of it, and the decoupling of my little device from all the extras that have accumulated under the umbrella of "phone".

by dontblokmebro68

0 subcomment

I miss the days of physical keyboards. I spend most of my time correcting mistakes on these awful screen boards.

by dlcarrier

0 subcomment

I bought a PinePhone with a keyboard case, and it's a great form factor, but the implementation is really bad, with the keys immediately binding if pressed at even the slightest angle.
A proper implementation could make phones as usable as laptops.

by Marsymars

0 subcomment

The delta between modern soft keyboards and phone-size physical keyboards just seems too small to make the bulk of a physical keyboard worthwhile.
If someone is really "typing long emails or editing documentation with just their phone's touch keyboard" they're probably not doing that while standing/walking, so they're probably better off getting a little stand for their phone, and a portable Bluetooth keyboard, which will be far more functional than a keyboard for thumbs.

by BigGreenJorts

0 subcomment

Lot of the comments here immediately made me think of this video where a guy puts a blackberry keyboard onto a flip4. https://youtu.be/qy_9w_c2ub0?si=MvhM3SnTfcN_RCVO

by F7F7F7

1 subcomments

The Blackberry Bold 9000 is the greatest handheld cellular device of all time. It's perfect. The Bold 2 was the last Blackberry device I owned and used as a actual phone before they started leaning into the black bar monolith. At that point the 'your holding it wrong' iPhone 4 was just better in that area.
The perfect form factor however is the Blackberry Passport which I now own as a little Cyberdeck device (managed to get a version running Android). The combination of touchscreen, keyboard swipe mouse cursor and physical keyboard is what every phone should be.

by masteruvpuppetz

0 subcomment

I almost always use voice dictation when no one's around. I think having physical keyboards is a sign of regression.

by bpavuk

0 subcomment

with Google's long-time push for adaptivity across candy-bar phones, foldables, tablets of varying sizes, desktops, and recently XR, I wonder how well modern apps will handle this new generation of keyboard phones :)

by vx_r

0 subcomment

To be honest, on android there are a plenty options that work quite well within OS to reduce typos to almost 0%. Once I switched to iOS, the experience has been shockingly instable with no proper custom keyboard support. I mean, it is 2026. But just got too old to be switching OS back and forth. Physcial keyboards coming back for the save seems like one company doing one simple thing so wrong that people yearn for it. Maybe that was the play to make even more revenue. Sounds like an idea for new apple accessory. Create problem, sell the solution.

by jm4

2 subcomments

What the hell is wrong with that site? It immediately starts playing audio and there’s no apparent way to stop it.

by Imustaskforhelp

0 subcomment

I had a keypad phone for less than 15$ and it was really great and portable/small.
Sadly it died one day some months ago and recently I contacted some shops to find what went wrong with the phone and it looks like the battery had some issue.
But luckily, its battery is removable so I can just buy a new one. I am gonna bring it in a few days maybe (if I get the time) but should take less than 2$
The amount of features in the phones (calling+storage/music+audio+messaging ie sms) and all others make it worth it, the only thing it doesn't have is internet/app access but I really loved the phone.
For context: It's the kaechoda k100. Its keyboard is physical but it doesn't show the buttons and looks really cool irl. The buttons only show when you click on them.
I remember one of my friends literally shout one day that I had Iphone Mini and the whole class was looking at me but it actually felt really nice phone and definitely better than my dad's old shitass redmi 1 gb phone android which was so slow.
the k100 had 32mb ram iirc. its crazy how snappy it was compared to the almost two magntitude larger 1 gb android ram phone.
Dumbphones are amazing given how cheap they are.
I think that personally a cool-looking dumb phone can/should actually-be given to kids for calling/safety-concerns without giving them the beast of phones if possible in situations but obv it depends on situation.
Although one of the things I wanted with the dumb phone was a Linux handheld.
I found this website just now https://mecha.so/comet#hardware so it would be interesting to see how the idea of linux handhelds pan out.
Dumb phone + Linux handheld seems good seperation of concern personally to me given how lightweight Dumb phones are. I have had them sometimes be lost in my pocket :)
Edit: But point be said that obviously they are very restricted for messaging purposes at times but I had optimized my typing speed for it to be like 1 word per second maybe 2 so for some basic things and even talking to some of my friends sometimes it was possible.
I was the only reason people used SMS sometimes in the world where mostly its whatsapp during my time with the dumb-phone.

by squigz

3 subcomments

I never enjoyed the Blackberry-style keyboards, but I had an HTC Desire Z with a full slideout keyboard that I absolutely loved.

by b3ing

0 subcomment

Reviews on Amazon aren’t that great

by kgwxd

1 subcomments

And like everything else that's making a comeback, they're like a tenth as usable as they used to be. The hardware is awful in every way. Awkward and fragile. No worth the gimmick, you'll hate it in a day. No one can even make software keyboards anymore. There is no hope.