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back to article 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 …

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  1. gizmo23

    Slider key boards better

    The best *keyboard* I ever used (on a phone) was the Sony Experia X1. However it ran Windows mobile which drove me nuts. It used to switch off the phone function just when I answered a call. Currently using a HTC Desire Z which is very good but would be nicer with an upgrade to Android. Other Half loves her Blackberry Torch slider, though.

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    1. Red Eskimo
      Reply Icon

      Re: Slider key boards better

      I was frustrated with the lack of recent Android sliders in the UK, and imported an HTC Doubleshot (AKA T-Mobile MyTouch Slide 4g) from the USA. It works a treat on the 3 network. Shame HTC don't sell them in Europe... I know, "there's no demand".

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  2. DangerousQ
    FAIL

    NOKIA Hate! - Fail !!!

    Another useless reg Nokia hate post.

    The asha scores 80% and is the cheapest of all the phones scoring 80-85% and still no recommendation. The E series phones still available if you look are far superior to most of these. People like the reviewer just need to be shot (no not harsh at all!) for the biased HTC shoddy expensive plastic crap recommendations.

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  3. Bad Beaver
    Paris Hilton

    So sliders are off-topic?

    Nokia E7 is still ruling that part of the jungle. It is everything the E-Series is about – I am not aware of anything out there that can touch it in terms of build quality, hardware features and overall design. I would love to see this form factor run MeeGo – I shake my fist at Nokia for not releasing the N950 to the general public. Not that Belle wouldn't do. In fact it does quite fine. Especially since it does the little things you simply expect a phone to do but apparently are no longer to be taken for granted.

    I nearly keeled over laughing the other day when an aggressively anti-Nokia mate of mine (some people act like Nokia at some point pissed in their pint and made them drink it) sporting both an iPhone and some Android complained that "these days, you cannot turn phones off overnight anymore and still have the alert work in the morning."

    I could not resist to ask him "You mean like a Nokia does, right?"

    Priceless face, absolutely priceless.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So sliders are off-topic?

      Alert?

      If you mean the alarm then he's talking shit.

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  4. h3

    This is a poor review. The ChaCha is a junk armv6. Android is not good at a low resolution even with a qwerty keyboard.

    The Motorola pro is fairly good.

    (The Milestone / Droid range - and the Xperia Pro (Mini Pro has a screen that is too small) are also good).

    The Nokia Symbian blackberry alikes (E71 and its newer siblings) are also quite good.

    The Xperia Pro really is a great business phone (Slide mechanism seems similar to the Xperia Play).

    Maybe I will try a blackberry ones I can get a QNX one (With a Playbook tethered). I like QNX that I used at a previous job. (Just wish they were less locked down - using pkgsrc/QNX would be awesome).

    These modern devices still seem worse than the Psion ones even after all this time.

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  5. h3

    Forgot to clarrify that with regards to the psion I am mainly meaning the keyboard. (But the basic functions worked really well also).

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Another E71 fan here. What gives?

    Interesting to see the number of E71 fans here.

    Shortly after the ZTE Blade came out, I acquired a Blade as an "upgrade" from my E65. Didn't like it for the well known reasons - battery life, my touch-incompatible fingers, poor RF, etc. And no offline satnav at that time (my E65 had TomTom).

    So after looking around I *bought* an E71 second hand. It's great for the same reasons the E65 was great and the Blade wasn't, plus it has a kbd for occasional use, AND it still runs my old TomTom (unsupported, needs external BT GPS, out of date maps, but works fine even in no-signal areas). E71 also has great battery life, OK camera (unlike the Blade), and works fine in poor signal areas.

    Come back the real Nokia, all is forgiven. Shame that's not going to happen. So where next then? I'm due for an upgrade, or do I just save money by swapping to SIM-only?

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    1. zanto
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Up

      Re: Another E71 fan here. What gives?

      I was one of the first to own an e71. It does everything I need a phone to do, and it's a tough little bugger. I'll probaby just replace the battery and keep using it till the keys fall off.

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  7. Sgt_Oddball

    What? No desire Z?

    Of all the recent 'qwerty' phones I thought (and still think owing to owning one, bias I know but still) that the desire z was one of the best comprimises since it's got both a nice usable screen size and still has a decent keyboard, which i rather like since for work I can vnc into my work station and actually code if need be (massive geek angle I know) which nothing else can touch since i can use the thumb slider for a mouse, have a large(ish) screen and still type.

    Yes, I know I'm not going to do a days work on it, but if a critical servers down and your actually having a work/life balance then it's a godsend for coaxing a system back into life until Monday morning

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    1. Red Eskimo
      Reply Icon

      Re: What? No desire Z?

      The HTC Doubleshot (T-Mobile MyTouch Slide 4g) is a good slide phone, and can be imported from the USA. It works fine on 3 (UK).

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What about sliders?

    Also disappointed not to see any slider phones mentioned.

    Cant do without the hardware keyboard on my milesotne 2

    HAd a htc touch pro and tytn before that

    Where have they all gone?

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  9. csumpi
    FAIL

    motorola droids

    This article is incomplete as I'm typing this on my droid3, which is the best keyboard enhanced phone I've every had.

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  10. Tommy Pock

    Typing this blazingly quickly with my gorgeous HP Prē³ - I weep at the fact that it was scrapped after being on sale for about a week. It's a proper, proper smart phone, qwerty keyboard, not designed on a budget and not designed for kids. Would have been perfect for this Reg item if they still sold the bloody things.

    Sigh.

    The X10 Mini Pro is the best qwerty keyboard phone on sale today, if you want one; get that.

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  11. IHateWearingATie
    Go

    mmmm BB keyboards....

    I chose a BB with a proper keyboard for my work phone (yes I had a choice - the benefit of now working for a small company rather than a government monolith).

    I just can't get on with the soft keyboards for lots of typing, but the BB keyboards are just right for me

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  12. Badsurgeon

    Cha Cha battery problem

    The HTC Cha Cha has a dialer problem which means when you have made one phone call the dialer does not exit properly and chews through processor usage until the battery is dead. It is an established problem that HTC cannot seem to fix or can't be bothered to. For me it meant the battery did not last one working day even with everything switched off. You could literally watch the battery drain with the only option to avoid it a battery pull after each call. also it often has a locked boot loader so is very hard to root.

    Was irritating enough for me to sell it after a month.

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  13. /\/\j17

    What a waste of bits

    Like many fellow commentards I'm also a fan of slide out QWERTY phones so read the story with interest...leading to dissapointment. Are there really NO new slide out QWERTY phone out there at the moment?

    Looks like the Nokia E7 for a while longer - even if it was better running Anna than Belle. Wonder if we will ever see Carla/Donna...?

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  14. ted frater

    Mr. Cox, the author of this piece should have called it querty for midget hands.

    Along with many posters I am sick to death with the handset makers for ignoring a large sector of mobile users who have big hands.

    Form should follow function NOT form following fashion.

    Which as one can see, has been set by the Iphone.

    Nothing wrong with that, except its become a handset makers dream.

    Just a screen, a pcb and a body . And to hell with user convenience.

    along with this the obsession with thinness at the expense of battery size and run time.

    The last time I found a handset that suited ME was the Nokia communicator 9210i.

    proper keys, well spaced, and responsive.

    Id pay good money for a later handset with a bigger screen and a proper keyboadr,

    till it happens the money stays in my pocket.

    There are 10s of thousands of us in the UK, and millions world wide .

    The handset makers are missing a trick here.

    One possibility is a Samsung galaxy note in a fold case with a bluetooth keyboard along side.

    Well have to see when they come on the s/h market at a reasonable price to give one a try.

    till then Ill continue to use my Nokia.

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  15. RAMChYLD

    ChaCha

    I can't believe El Reg did not mention anything with regards to the ChaCha's memory. Seriously, what kind of self-respecting company nowadays would put out a phone with so little internal memory? When I powered up my phone for the first time, it only had 78MB free. Install a few apps (and perplexingly, a few updates) and it starts warning you of low memory. Indeed, after just half a dozen apps and a few updates, I'm down to less than 10MB free. And yes, I do have a MicroSD card installed - a 8GB one, and did tell the phone to install apps onto the card instead of the phone. It doesn't always work- apparently Android allows the app's metadata to override the user's installation settings, and as such said half dozen android app refuses to be moved to SD card.

    It also comes preloaded with all sorts of crap that I never need to use like apps for managing the phones with Filipino, Indonesian and Singaporean operators (seriously, they should make these optional instead of preloading it with the phone).

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  16. Robredz
    Linux

    HP crapped out

    The Pre 3 was/is a competent phone, decent display, quite tough, and a reasonable slide out keyboard. Shame HP killed it off as WebOs was good too. Worth a punt if you can find one?

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  17. Leona A
    FAIL

    Missing out Sony?

    So Dominated by the BlackBerries and missing the Sony's.

    Like the Xperia Pro, which I have, the Mini Pro, or Txt Pro.

    All have, err, QWERTY keyboards !

    There is a lack of good QWERTY phones these days, why didn't Moto bring out the Droid/Milesone 4 to the UK? A big miss, it looked a lovely phone.

    Humm, nice review, how about doing some more research ?

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    1. Caleb Cox (Written by Reg staff)
      Reply Icon

      Re: Missing out Sony?

      To clarify, there are actually a very limited number of Qwerty handsets still current here in the UK. With certain models either discontinued, or soon to be so, their respective companies don't want to send kit out for review and third party retailers generally have a similar stance.

      First impressions of a phone from a shopfloor wouldn't be a fair assessment in comparison and thus Sony missed out, despite varying efforts to include the Xperia Pro/Mini Pro.

      Believe me, if you saw the extensive list I put together of models released, launch dates and current availability in the UK, you wouldn't doubt the research/planning.

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  18. milla03

    In defense of the slider....

    ...having had a bunch of BB handsets over the last few years through work, every single HTC hardware keyboard I've had (TYTN, TYTNii, TouchPro2 and now the 7Pro) have been superb. They keep getting better and better. The 7Pro is a work of art, brilliant to use, not tiring on the thumbs at all and a much better form factor to boot!

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  19. Spotfist
    Coat

    Worst article ever! Not the writers fault but lets face facts here it's a bit like a roundup of "hot" ladies that must at all times have a bag over the heads because it looks like they have been bobbing for apples in a deep fat fryer!

    I have given up waiting for a top notch QWERTY phone and gone for the galaxy note, who wants to buy a phone that is already 2 years out of date? It's a shame the Droid/milestone 4 never made it to europe, at least Motorola tried... :(

    Maybe Sony will release an update to the xperia mini but I wont hold my breath, we are all sheep buying what ever is tossed our way, I know I did lol!

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  20. Rob Davis

    Sony X10 Mini Pro and HTC Desire Z

    +1 for everyone here praising the Sony X10 Mini Pro. It's a dinky little marvel!

    I don't own a X10 Mini Pro but I have a HTC Desire Z which I am happy with.

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  21. nemo20000
    Facepalm

    But what have they ever done for us?

    To date nothing has beaten the venerable G1’s keyboard – that was superb. I’d like a G1 mark II with appropriate hardware improvements, but the form factor was right (for me) from day one.

    I’m currently using a Desire Z, which is good, but I miss the G1’s keyboard. But I fear the future is bleak for those of us who were sold on the G1 – they’ve shed the physical phone buttons, they’ve discarded the trackerball, and now they’re scorning keyboards.

    It’s the Fall of the Roman Empire all over again. It’ll be glass windows, central heating and decent roads we lose next.

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  22. Tapeador
    Thumb Up

    More Nokia love

    I use an E61 from 2006. Had an iPhone briefly, had an Android phone, had a few others, keep returning to the Nokia. Not sure why, but I really rate it. It's bombproof, touch wood. The battery does last for ages, although you do need to get a new one every two years.

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  23. silent_count

    Keep em all

    I have a Desire-Z and wouldn't trade it for anything.

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  24. pk1

    If anyone's after a good QWERTY android phone

    Then have a look at the Samsung Captivate Glide. It's essentially a slightly better Galaxy S, with a slide-out keyboard. You can only get it in US & Canada but there's various bods flogging it on eBay for about £200. Really, really nice phone.

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