Anyone like a physical qwerty

[Silent Fox]

I know we live in the all touch world, but blackberry has revamped their old school lineup, and it makes me wonder would anyone like to see a windows phone with a similar design???

A long time ago I had the Motorola Q with some ancient form of windows mobile, and I loved it and its keyboard. I would totally sacrifice some screen size for a windows phone with a tangible qwerty. I loved the shape of the Q, which was very blackberry esque, but I also love the current wp8.1 setup.

 

[hotphil]

Yes
Yes
Yes
I can't believe there isn't (even a niche) one.
The whole idea of onscreen keyboards is flawed. Due to being onscreen.
They take up half the space. And you're never sure which keyboard layout you're gonna get. Or what the Enter button will do (will it take me to next field? Backwards? An OK button?). They also usually pop up and hide whatever action buttons are available on the page/app. And no touch feedback (not talking about haptic, I mean actual fingers-across-keys touch). Give me the keyboard from a Wizard or TyTN II over even the best swypey onscreen nonsense anyday.

 

[ajayden]

Physical keyboard is good but then they should not implement like the old day (Tytn II style).

They must implement the new way, Surface style, like phone cover and keyboard.
Posted on Lumia 1520 via Taptalk

 

[Nokia_Lumia]

I had (and still have) the SCH-i760, XV6800, LG Fathom Verizon Windows Mobile devices. I miss the physical QWERTY. The arrow keys/D-pad were also very useful, along with the call/end keys. It is really a shame that absolutely everyone followed Apple and there are almost no physical button devices today. I hope that we have a keyboard option at least as an attachment in the future.

I could make a call in a matter of seconds on SCH-i760 - hit dial button, select from recent calls in the dialer menu using dpad, hit dial button again. Or use smart dialing using the front number pad or slide out qwerty. Much quicker than today, for sure.

Working with Outlook and MS Office was also easier: I had the entire screen to see, with keyboard for typing, and stylus for precise selection of word/paragraph/cell.(That is aside from the fact that Windows Mobile was way ahead of its time, and even today is in some ways ahead of WinPhone 8 for productivity)

 

[Yazen]

I know we live in the all touch world, but blackberry has revamped their old school lineup, and it makes me wonder would anyone like to see a windows phone with a similar design???

A long time ago I had the Motorola Q with some ancient form of windows mobile, and I loved it and its keyboard. I would totally sacrifice some screen size for a windows phone with a tangible qwerty. I loved the shape of the Q, which was very blackberry esque, but I also love the current wp8.1 setup.

Dell Venue Pro had a pretty good qwerty.

No virtual keyboard can stand up to the BlackBerry Passport

 

[hotphil]

Physical keyboard is good but then they should not implement like the old day (Tytn II style).

They must implement the new way, Surface style, like phone cover and keyboard.
Posted on Lumia 1520 via Taptalk

Not for a phone.
It'd be constantly getting disconnected, cause trouble removing device from pocket and having a connection that gets gunked up. Not to mention that typing on a Touch Cover is less reponsive than a Speak & Spell.
Integrated slider with a decent hinge mechanism and actual keys is the way to go. If anyone decides there's demand out there.​

 

[tonygt92]

A Nokia E7 type phone running WP, with a bigger screen, metal body, flip out qwerty keyboard, a 20.7 mp cam, about the width of a Lumia 920, slimmer would be better.

 

[hotphil]

Please enough with the "slimmer" already.
Thick. Fill it with battery. Review, make thicker, add more battery. Sell smartphone with real-word full day battery life. Take all the money.

 

[MBY]

I'd love a physical keyboard. For me typing has always been a tactile experience, not a visual one. Visual keyboards cause me a ton of eye strain.

 

[SteveNoza]

Because BlackBerry seems incapable of building reliable physical keyboards anymore, maybe there is a market that Windows Phone can fill.

 

[Slovenix]

I support physical keyboards all the way. I'm surprised that someone actually likes it here and I always thought about a Windows phone or any phone with it.
I'm currently designing a smartphone in AutoCAD and I'll try to implement keyboard as well. I'm thinking about surface like keyboard..
I'll sure post renders on here when I'm done. (about two weeks as I'm creating peace by peace) or I can put low quality renders just to show it to you guys for feedback.

 

[Slovenix]

Do you guys like wooden backplates?

 

[hotphil]

Do you guys like wooden backplates?

Hell yes. Or leather. Or anything that doesn't slide out of your hand when it gets a bit sweaty.
I struggle to comprehend the mindset of some designers - "here's a device that's designed to be held. Let's make it out of something slippery. And that loses its beauty qualities when covered in fingerprints"

 

[hotphil]

I support physical keyboards all the way. I'm surprised that someone actually likes it here and I always thought about a Windows phone or any phone with it.
I'm currently designing a smartphone in AutoCAD and I'll try to implement keyboard as well. I'm thinking about surface like keyboard..
I'll sure post renders on here when I'm done. (about two weeks as I'm creating peace by peace) or I can put low quality renders just to show it to you guys for feedback.

Actual keys. Not Touch Cover ones. And remember the little dots or ridges on a couple of the keys that allow you to truly touch type. But illuminated is good too.

 

[Slovenix]

Actual keys. Not Touch Cover ones. And remember the little dots or ridges on a couple of the keys that allow you to truly touch type. But illuminated is good too.

I actually agree. I'm planning a fully featured keyboard, just need to figure out how to make them clickier. (pressure needed to click)

 

[Silent Fox]

I use my phone to email, text, modify documents and web search all day for my business. Honestly if I ever watch videos or anything I use my Surface. The idea of having keys with actual ridges and dots sounds amazing. I really love a lot of the windows phone stuff, but the design of a blackberry really is tempting for what I do.

I doubt Microsoft will come out with a Lumia of such keyed nature, but I would be all over it.

 

[TechFreak1]

Yes
Yes
Yes
I can't believe there isn't (even a niche) one.
The whole idea of onscreen keyboards is flawed. Due to being onscreen.
They take up half the space. And you're never sure which keyboard layout you're gonna get. Or what the Enter button will do (will it take me to next field? Backwards? An OK button?). They also usually pop up and hide whatever action buttons are available on the page/app. And no touch feedback (not talking about haptic, I mean actual fingers-across-keys touch). Give me the keyboard from a Wizard or TyTN II over even the best swypey onscreen nonsense anyday.

The dell venue pro, htc touch pro 7 where decent physical keyboard phones in terms of hard ware.

They (MS) messed up with the software, woeful support for landscape, locking msd cards to phones to which they were inserted (the dell venue pro had a accessible msd slot but hot swapping was not recommended as the o/s would format and switch on the "secure side" of the cards thus rending them unreadable via your bogstandard card readers, which lead to the MS certified msd cards). To gain access to the card in the HTC Pro 7 you had to semi disassemble the phone.

There are other issues but, won't mention them as this post will end up as a mini essay lol.

 

[fatclue_98]

Because BlackBerry seems incapable of building reliable physical keyboards anymore, maybe there is a market that Windows Phone can fill.

Full month into my Passport and no double-typing. Maybe someone bumped their head and figured it out.

It could happen.

 

[Slovenix]

Full month into my Passport and no double-typing. Maybe someone bumped their head and figured it out.

It could happen.

That device seems really interesting to me. Is typing easy and fast?

 

[fatclue_98]

That device seems really interesting to me. Is typing easy and fast?

I find it easier to type with only because of many years using BlackBerrys and knowing the shortcuts. I like not having to "shift" for any common punctuations because they're all laid out as a virtual 4th row. When you're on a password field, a virtual numbers row pops up and makes a 5th row so you're never losing much screen real estate. It's pretty cool once you get the hang of it.