Qwerty keyboards always seem to be on budget phones aimed a children.
Ten... Qwerty mobiles
As the speedy texter generation grows longer in the Bluetooth and touchscreen technologies improve, the range of Qwerty phones on offer gets smaller by the day. But for many, they wouldn't use anything else. Indeed, for RIM, Qwerty keys have been the hallmark of it BlackBerry handsets. Sliderphones aside, Qwerty mobiles have …
-
-
-
Friday 25th May 2012 19:31 GMT Michael Wojcik
> Or on phones owned by adults who like to text using proper English
Agreed. And I'll note that I have no problems with RSI from using the keyboard on my slider qwerty phone (Nokia Surge), nor do I have any problems typing on it with my "man-sized"[1] hands.
And I hate, hate, hate touchscreens. Have hated them since I first encountered them in the 1980s. Now please excuse me as I use my qwerty phone to order a new cane to shake at those damn kids on my lawn.
[1] By definition, insofar as I am a man. And they're actually about 190mm long (measured from crease in wrist closest to palm to tip of longest finger), which is right on the average for adult males. I don't have any stats at hand[2] for finger-sausagity.
[2] Ha!
-
Sunday 20th May 2012 00:47 GMT Steve Evans
The button size is certainly aimed at children. I doubt my man-sized hands could type on any of those keyboards. I certainly couldn't use a blackberry the last time I tried.
It's a pity HTC didn't continue with the landscape slide out keyboard design they had on the Desire Z. I currently own one, and can type on that quite successfully with my sausage fingers.
Unfortunately they decided to just follow the rest of the crowd and not bother making anything different, so now I have the full range of touch screen handsets from all the manufacturers to consider when I upgrade.
-
Monday 21st May 2012 15:17 GMT AdamWill
they did
"It's a pity HTC didn't continue with the landscape slide out keyboard design they had on the Desire Z. I currently own one, and can type on that quite successfully with my sausage fingers."
They did, only it was camouflaged with a T-Mobile product name. It's called the T-Mobile MyTouch 4G Slide. It's basically a Sensation with a slide out keyboard. I use one, it's great. Has two good ICS ROMs as well. Has 2100MHz, so it'd be fine in Europe (I used it in the UK on 3 for a month).
This roundup seems to have been for candybar QWERTY, for some reason.
-
-
-
Monday 21st May 2012 10:03 GMT bluesxman
Re: Never
Why stop there?
You shouldn't use share a computer keyboard or mouse.
Don't take the lift, those buttons will be filthy. But be careful of the hand rail as you take the stairs.
Don't flush the toilet, you know where those hands have been. You can't be sure the last person washed their hands properly before turning off that tap either. Watch out for that door handle on your way out too! In fact, any door handle.
In fact just put on your paper suit and stay out of public places altogether, Mr Hughes.
-
-
-
-
-
Saturday 19th May 2012 14:27 GMT Anonymous Coward
Xperia Mini Pro
I had one of these once. A gorrrgeous piece of hardware, beautifully put together. But the first time it ran flat it never booted up again. I sent it back :-(
Keyboards are for those who like to write decent amounts of text, but have fingernails and can't use touchscreeen keyboards.
-
Monday 21st May 2012 05:52 GMT Voland's right hand
Re: Xperia Mini Pro
Strange, wife runs her flat regularly and it never gives problems afterwards.
In any case, it is better build and has better keyboard than half of the monstrousities in the list. It is also still on sale priced at the very reasonable ~160£ SIM free unlocked. My only gripe with it is the relatively short battery life (for an Android). You have to charge it every day (and sometimes throughout the day when used heavily).
-
Monday 21st May 2012 12:55 GMT John 48
Re: Xperia Mini Pro
The key to battery life on the Xperia Mini Pro seems to be to add the android switch widgets that let you control things like GPS / Wifi / Bluetooth etc, and use them to turn off things you don't need at the time. GPS especially is a power hog. With all bells and whistles running, then you will need to charge it once a day certainly. However kept in standby, with wifi, mobile data, GPS off etc, and it will run for 5 days between charges with just a few calls and texts to deal with.
-
Monday 21st May 2012 14:41 GMT Voland's right hand
Re: Xperia Mini Pro
Replying to myself on this one:
While the Xperia (both Mini and the Arc) is a fantastic phone, its factory charger is phenomenal piece of crap. It is quite temperamental on charging from USB too (it will not charge if it is "on" from 2 of my laptops)
In any case I have seen the original charger failing to charge an Xperia mini or an Arc from low battery levels (ditto for USB to PC). In fact I have seen it discharge when connecting to its "default" charger.
I suspect that the original poster who had an Xperia never start again ran into that one. So it is not surprising that it refused to boot - it never actually charged up to do so (or maybe went to critical on battery in the process as well).
The solution for me has been to use kindle chargers. Plug in the phone, in 1h the battery is to 100% straight away.
-
-
-
-
-
-
Sunday 20th May 2012 20:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
against Nokia
Indeed. I am a late comer to Nokia. For the past decade and a half have used lots of Ericssons, Sony, Motorola, HTC and several others. The earlier phones had great build quality, e.g. T28 and T39, but progressively worse, especially Sony ericsson.
Two years ago I got my first Nokia E71. Great piece of kit, but I passed it on after 6 months to get the E72 with a much better camera. Another great piece of kit. Then I had to change providers and they had a C7 on offer. Again, great quality and functionality.
I see most of my friends with iPhones and I simply don't buy into the over-hype - I can do everything they can, and better in some respects. Never been happier with a phone's quality and functionality and the anti-Nokia rants are astonishing to say the least; it appears that people are being paid well to destroy them, it would not surprise me.
-
Sunday 20th May 2012 21:49 GMT Anonymous Coward 101
Re: against Nokia
Ask the people who got an N97 with an expensive 18 month contract why they hate Nokia, but steel yourself for a foul mouthed litany in reply. The real mystery is why people reflexively defend Nokia when other companies (e.g. Sony) would not come off as lightly.
The reviews of the E72 on Amazon suggest there were big software QC issues with that phone as well. It does seem that the Symbian^3 devices released in late 2010 were the first Nokia smartphones that were not terrible.
-
-
Monday 21st May 2012 12:04 GMT Nigel Whitfield.
Re: against Nokia
On the whole - and it's had quite a few software updates since launch - I've been very happy with my E72; it's sometimes a bit of a pig for web browsing, though Opera makes things a little more acceptable.
One of the reasons I still stick with it is because it does the phone things really well, and those seem to have been rather forgotten by some of the other OSs, in my view.
And, ProfiMail is an excellent IMAP client for Symbia; playing with a Galaxy Nexus at the moment, and while the stock email is better than the execrable G1 (which put me off Android for years), it's still not as good as ProfiMail.
-
-
Monday 21st May 2012 14:50 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: against Nokia
I am refusing to believe this groundturf on the simple grounds that the original software on both the E71, E72 and E95 which was released at about the same time as the 71 was phenomenally buggy.
Memory Leaks in VOIP which induce a reboot mid-way through a 10 minute call, memory leaks in 3G data handling, settings and card data corruption, the bluetooth thread dying every time something "interesting" happens like GPS having to load the next country map (I travelled with an E71 across Europe and there was a point where I could say exactly when the bluetooth thread will be dead again).
Those got fixed circa 2011 but by that time it was little too late. Nokia for me is equivalent to shoddy software quality assurance. Knowing first hand some of the "IT practices" that used to be the standard modus operandi in Symbian when it was doing software development in my "village" I am not surprised. "Development" shop that used to standardize on Sony Vaio - and handed out PC "power" based not on development need but on developer's salary rank - need I say more?
-
-
Monday 21st May 2012 09:53 GMT Anomynous Coward
I still use my E71 as my main making-phone-calls-and-texts phone - it's on a sub £10/month contract, does most of the smartphone-ish things (email, gps) tolerably and the battery lasts for days (it has had to be replaced once at a cost of about £4 in the three years or so I have had it).
I wouldn't choose to browse the web or look at photos / videos on it all day (I run a Galaxy Note alongside it for games and multimedia) but it's a really good phone.
-
-
-
Monday 21st May 2012 07:55 GMT Olli Mannisto
Re: sony xperia mini pro
>>xperia mini,pro is by far, the best. and upgreadable to android 4.
Ahem. It's, well, mini. Xperia pro is the real thing. Like Desire Z, only with better specs. Quite nice for writing, I gave up on on-screen keyboards pretty completely after a day or two. I prefer the Xperia to a tablet if I need to write something.
-
-
Saturday 19th May 2012 09:21 GMT Nick Kew
No mention of things that matter?
Scarcely any mention of battery life: which phones need recharging every day vs ones you can forget for the week.
And while you tell us which you find to have the better or worse keys, how about something on the comfort (or otherwise) of holding it in the hand while either typing or holding it to the ear? That's what ruled out the rather-big-to-hold-comfortably blackberries of the day when I bought my beloved Nokia E71.
-
Saturday 19th May 2012 09:29 GMT Michael 31
Samsung phone is literally useless
Bought the Samsung phone for my son. He keeps it in his pocket with the keyboard locked. When I ring him it instantly unlocks and answers the call, but he doesn't know the phone has rung. Basically, I cannot call him. Mmmm, but t can listen to his conversations.... so may be not >completely< useless.
M
-
-
Monday 21st May 2012 15:21 GMT AdamWill
Re: All disappointing
http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/02/t-mobile-mytouch-4g-slide-review/
I know I resemble some crazy advertising bot in these threads, but the fact is the field's very limited and I know that's a really good phone. =) I can't think of a high-end Android slider outside of the Droid 4 and the MT4GS, and the MT4GS *does* have 2100MHz.
-
-
Saturday 19th May 2012 10:22 GMT David Given
I have an Alcatel OT-808! It's a very nice phone. Annoyingly pink, but it's incredibly small, extremely robust (I keep it in the pocket with the keys and coins!), the battery lasts for a week, and the keyboard is very usable.
What it's not is a smartphone, and I've been on the hunt for a similar form factor Android device. The only one I've found so far is the Motorola Flipout. Unfortunately that has a battery life of a day, if you're lucky, and has been abanded by Motorola and so only runs Eclair. Yes, not even Froyo. But it does have a FIVE row keyboard, which if you're doing anything shell-related makes a vast, vast difference.
I'm a little surprised that clamshells are so out of fashion. Apparently nobody these days makes small Android phones.
-
Saturday 19th May 2012 10:44 GMT Sampler
No Slide outs?
Having had a HTC Kaiser (TyTnII), HTC Rhodium (TouchPro2) and HTC Desire Z I would've liked to see a slide keyboard amongst all the blackberry clones, never been able to get on with the squished compact keyboards like the ones listed.
TouchPro2 had the best keyboard of any phone I've had - though have to say the change to the HTC OneX and losing the physical board hasn't been as jarring as I expected - the bluetooth board I bought has barely been used.
-
Saturday 19th May 2012 11:49 GMT Paul Shirley
Re: No Slide outs?
I expected to miss the slide out keyboard when I upgraded my G1 but so far it's been pretty painless. Once you hit 4" screen size onscreen keyboards start comparing well - in portrait mode I can type as fast with 2 thumbs as on the old hard keyboard. Just annoying how much space it wastes on screen and the bad formatting it provokes on web pages.
I'd still like a slider keyboard but it no longer feels essential.
-
Saturday 19th May 2012 14:36 GMT Wize
Re: No Slide outs?
I would like to have seen a slide out keyboard too. It was essential on the Nokia N97, as as the on screen keyboard took you away from the page you are tying into, and still use it on the HTC Desire Z.
Haptic feedback just isn't the same as the touch of real keys. I subconsciously feel along the keyboard for the right key, which doesn't work for virtual ones.
-
-
Saturday 19th May 2012 10:45 GMT Mage
Ugly and wasteful form factor
I really hate the "Blackberry" form factor. I'd hardly call it a QWERTY at all. Even if there was a Clamshell version it would be slightly better. They are awkward.
I'm only interested in the "landscape" "proper" QWERTY keypads. IMO none of those are really QWERTY.
When I upgrade it will be to one with a "proper" QWERTY mini key pad.
Battery life?
-
Saturday 19th May 2012 11:27 GMT Anonymous Coward
out of all the candybar qwerty phones (i600, E71, Galaxy Pro, Pro+) I've owned the Nokia E71 had the best keyboard layout and feel, I had the Samsung Galaxy Pro and didn't like layout of the comma and punctuation marks, always getting the two confused and having to press ALT to use both made it confusing, Moto Pro+ was pretty good all round the only pet hate I have is the way the keys are moulded its not as comfortable as the other phones I mentioned.
-
Saturday 19th May 2012 11:53 GMT gaz 7
Sliders
Does noone want qwery sliding phones anymore, or is it more of a case of the phone companies and manufacturers not wanting them for some reason.
I have a Nokia N900 and the missus an E7, both great form factors. I would love something like the E7, or slightly bigger with a decent grown up OS - think Maemo meets EPOC32.
There does seem to be Android sliders about, but not in the UK (Samsung Captivate, or Motorola Droid).
And no toys like the ones in the roundup dont count. I have a BB (for work), and absolutley hate the form factor as well as the phone in general, & every other chav around here has one.
-
Saturday 19th May 2012 13:45 GMT Adam Hammerton
FFS! S40 is not Symbian!!! (Asha 302)
I'd think a site as esteemed as El Reg could get this most simple of things straight. And what about the E5, E6 or E7. A little older than the 302 but all far, far superior (and been around about as long as the HTC Cha Cha so still relevant based on your choice of devices).