BlackBerry's iconic keyboard patent has expired
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I miss phone keyboards so much. I wish I still had a slide out keyboard
With all the craze to make phones super thin, soon they'll be so thin you could add a sliding keyboard on it, and it'll be thinner than phones of a year or two ago!
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I had two BlackBerry devices for work, right about the time they were going away. I'd heard the keyboard was good on earlier models but it seemed like the quality had gotten pretty cheap on the later phones. The BlackBerry 10 OS on my last phone was actually pretty good, and probably would've kept them in the market if they'd launched it 5 years earlier.
remember some of the older phones had a sliding keyboard from under the phone.
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My HTC Desire Z (aka T-Mobile G2) got many years of extra use as a dedicated emulation machine for exactly that reason.
In mine, the keys stopped working reliably, but it was still my favourite Android phone so far
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Just last week I upgraded from an LG V30. It was still running Android 8 and the battery would only last half of a day but I loved that phone.
RIP LG phones, I will miss you.
I still have my lg v30! It's not my main phone, but I keep it on for apps and other stuff I don't want to put on my main phone, and the battery still lasts me a whole day with moderate use. And yeah, the last update it had was in 2019. Truly a great company. But for me, the G5 was the GOAT!
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Hopefully that means somebody other than Unihertz will make a keyboard phone.
I don’t need it to be super high end, I’d just rather not own a Chinese made phone with all the data they send back.
There's the FXtech Pro-1, with a slide out keyboard, apparently the hinge is very good.
But it's pretty ancient by now and there's still no successor... I doubt it sold well.
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It seems to work terribly on iphones, even with Google's keyboard. (Source: one single iphone which was entirely uncooperative.)
Try going a little slower. That always makes it more accurate for me.
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With all the craze to make phones super thin, soon they'll be so thin you could add a sliding keyboard on it, and it'll be thinner than phones of a year or two ago!
I loved my N900. Think it would be doable right now with that thickness.
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I had two BlackBerry devices for work, right about the time they were going away. I'd heard the keyboard was good on earlier models but it seemed like the quality had gotten pretty cheap on the later phones. The BlackBerry 10 OS on my last phone was actually pretty good, and probably would've kept them in the market if they'd launched it 5 years earlier.
My 2001-era Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 PDA had the best slide out keyboard ever made, nothing has come close at all. A CF wifi card brought it so close to being a smart phone before there were smart phones.
I would buy it today as a phone if they'd just remake the original with an updated linux with QT equivalent option and updated screen hardware.
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Try going a little slower. That always makes it more accurate for me.
I use the Google keyboard at speed and it works great, while the iphone used in the same manner was completely impossible. Even the Google keyboard installed on the iphone was awful.
I'll try your tip and go slower. Maybe that will make a difference.
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So for 20 years, it wasn't possible for anyone but BlackBerry to manufacture phones with the revolutionary technology of... checks notes... keyboards, and now that it is irrelevant to modern devices, is free for anyone to use.
Patents should be abolished.
Patents should be abolished.
I disagree.
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I can't find any mention of it being on Kickstarter, but here's an early promo for it:
https://crackberry.com/clicks-iphone-brings-real-keyboard-back-smartphones
How's your experience using it? Do you keep it always on? And does the phone seem too big?
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I never had a blackberry, but gained a hatred of them. Not for anything the phone was, but at how bad at software they were. The blackberry software to allow them to read emails from the company mail server was an over bloated, buggy and slow POS. It would forever break and the solution was always to remove and re-add it which would take a day and disrupt email for everyone.
But some CEO "needed" to use a blackberry as it looked corporate.
The one on the picture is actually a Keyone. It runs Android 8 which was just fine.
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Check out Unihertz. Can’t offer any advice or if they’re good, but they look interesting.
I'm very satisfied with mine. Some UI tweeks were required to adapt to the small screen.
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