AT LEAST Two More Blackberry Keyboard Phones Coming
 

http://www.techradar.com/news/blackb...eyboard-phones

https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/09/...w-phones-2018/

TCL will release atleast two physical keyboard phones in 2018. I am guessing revisions of the Keyone and Priv designs. Maybe we might see a revival of the classic Blackberry design with a trackpad and landscape display similar to the Blackberry Classic or Bold.

On top of existing Blackberry devices which run Android BBOS 10, the Dragonbox Pyra and Pandora, Sailfish Toh keyboard, Samsung Keyboard addons for the S8, S7 and Note 8, Motomod Keyboard, Gemini PDA, the Pocketchip with mechanical keyboard mod, the GPD Win 1 and GPD Win 2, Raspberry Pi Keyboard designs, The GPD Pocket/Possible Pocket 2, and we now have even more Blackberry devices with physical keyboards as an option.

2017 was the return of the keyboard and 2018 will be growth for physical keyboard devices, maybe 2019 they become more mainstream and we become less dependent on mods.

Re: AT LEAST Two More Blackberry Keyboard Phones Coming
 

Blackberry devices, with Android or with BBOS 10, are still very closed. Though Blackberry Passport is very tempting because: 1) square display; 2) touch keypad. I am looking out for Blackberry Visa, very similar to Blackberry Passport, but with patented slide-out keyboard: http://www.eyeonmobility.com/wp-cont...rry_visa_1.jpg While the design is complicated, it would allow for nice all-time accessibility of fingerprint reader built into space key, similarly to Keyone (Blackberry Passport didn't have such a fingerprint reader), while reducing probability of pocket-dialing. If you want to go for even more complicated mechanics, dual cameras assembly similar to Oppo N1 could be used.

Dragonbox Pyra is on my must-have list, since this mobile device might potentially replace my laptop without being too bulky or heavy for traveling.

Sailfish TOH sounds interesting, but I didn't catch the Jolla's bandwagon yet. Doesn't help that only one of Sailfish devices is TOH-compatible. Wish at least PuzzlePhone included TOH-compatibilty somehow, in its Spine maybe? Yotaphone's dual-screen is a fascinating design, too, but it would have been nicer to have eInk TOH for TOH-compatible phone, instead of being stuck with one fixed hardware design.

Samsung devices suffer from "too large display" problem, typical for modern phablets. These "mobile" phones do not fit into a pocket. Moto Z devices, while suffering from the same problem, have add-ons similar to Jolla's TOH - and at least, more than one device compatible with such add-ons was manufactured. In fact, if Moto Z devices were compatible with TOH, it could have been a tremendous help for Jolla, but Motorola instead positioned itself as a competitor.

Gemini PDA is amusing, and so are GPD Win and GPD Pocket, but Pyra looks better to me, if only because Pyra has resisitive touchscreen and is generally more open.

PocketChip, I already have. Should look up mechanical keyboard mod.

Raspberry Pi is too troublesome to make a case for. That's a common problem with users: they don't want to craft a plastic (or wooden) case for a device.

I am just wishing currently for devices which look beautiful (not just black rectangles), are small (can fit into jeans front pocket without breaking), can last for a week on one battery, and have a sliding T9 keyboard (or anything else similarly easy to use, without pocket dialing or buttons being too tiny for typing). Sometimes I wish a phone was a phone, for calling, not for typing long texts on qwerty keyboard; and a separate device, like ultra-mobile PC, was used for web-browsing, text typing, and so on. Sometimes I wish for an integrated multifunctional device - but with form-factor far more unique than a slate.

Thank you. Best wishes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Per aspera ad astra...

P.S. Don't forget about Neo900, a keyboard phone too.

Re: AT LEAST Two More Blackberry Keyboard Phones Coming
 

I liked the TOH concept a lot, too bad the Jolla sbj1 turned out to be the only HW that Jolla ever made. @Kimmoli made quite a few ingenious and useful concept-TOH's and I would have loved to see some more...


I had an idea for that but due to lack of time have not gone anywhere with it yet...

I recently got into my hands a bagful of various models of Asus ee-PC mini-laptops. The devices by themselves are fairly limited by todays standards since the HW is about a decade old and was not near the top-of-the-range even then :D

So, I had in my mind to gut the insides out of some of the devices and replace with Raspberries. What I'd save is the display and keyboard and since the PI's are so small there would be plenty of space available to stuff full of Li-ion goodiness... :eek:

I already have made some tests on how long I can run a Raspberry from a mobile power bank and the results are promising. When I'll have time to do it (which looking at my schedule could be sometime in the 2030's...) I'll check what the keyboard and display interfaces in the ee-PC's are like and what's required to adapt those to the PI.

Heh, there actually should be space enough for stuffing at least 2 Raspberries in one subnotebook frame, so I could have real multicpu laptop, not just multicore!

Re: AT LEAST Two More Blackberry Keyboard Phones Coming
 

I would love to see that! :D

Re: AT LEAST Two More Blackberry Keyboard Phones Coming
 

Well, blackberry phones are unrootable by design. (this will probably mean no OEM unlock too)
Enough for me not to even consider this an option.

Re: AT LEAST Two More Blackberry Keyboard Phones Coming
 

TCL are bringing back Palm this year, maybe we'll see a more open keyboard phone with that brand.

Re: AT LEAST Two More Blackberry Keyboard Phones Coming
 

Same here, every time I do a search for a qwerty hwkb phone blackberries come up, and I always look up to see if their recent models have unlocked bootloaders. Forever disappointed...I guess their government/corporate clients are too important to risk it. If they made a consumer phone they could corner the market!

Re: AT LEAST Two More Blackberry Keyboard Phones Coming
 

I loved my Palm phone. I used it for 9 years and even though I love my N900 to bits, I still find it nowhere near the Palm in terms of usability. But putting Palm and open in the same sentence? No way!

Re: AT LEAST Two More Blackberry Keyboard Phones Coming
 

A competitor ? Jolla abandonned the TOH when they stopped making hardware.
And Motorola would have been stupid to embrace such a crippled solution (I2C, created for small and slow communications), when they have chosen a high performance bus allowing a greater range of adds-on (like video capture and projection, or sound).


But back on the topic, it would be great to really have some nice choices regarding phones with hardware keyboard. I am looking especially for compacts sliding landscape QWERTY (N950 like).

Re: AT LEAST Two More Blackberry Keyboard Phones Coming
 

Palm is now just a brand owned by TCL, like Alcatel, there's a chance that it could be open.

Re: AT LEAST Two More Blackberry Keyboard Phones Coming
 

OK, this bit is hilarious "unrootable by design" :p

Could have been true with their own OS but BB's use android in the new devices, right? And where you have droid you have countless people ponding at it, so now and then someone is bound to find a crack leading in. Fact of life.

Re: AT LEAST Two More Blackberry Keyboard Phones Coming
 

All the Moto Zs are unlockable, and some SFOS adaptions have already been made. I believe we can find a way to make it work with the Keyboard Mod, and it's a landscape slider.

Re: AT LEAST Two More Blackberry Keyboard Phones Coming
 

Speaking of which, Chen, what Moto Zs models is your slider going to be compatible with? Only the Moto Z (XT1650), or some others as well?

Re: AT LEAST Two More Blackberry Keyboard Phones Coming
 

All Moto Z series which supports Moto Mods platform. So Z, Z Play, Z Force, Z2 Play, Z2 Force to be named.

Re: AT LEAST Two More Blackberry Keyboard Phones Coming
 

I don't know much about the Z smartphones, except that they are big and now have a nice keyboard slider (thanks for reviving the concept), but if true Sailfish experience could be possible on them and the landscape keyboard could be used, then that would be a nice filler for me until your own qwerty phone is out (but it may take time, and is dependent on successful crowdfunding). My Jolla C is dying, and it is dying now.

I don't need the proprietary word prediction if I have a keyboard slider, but were are we now with Aliendalvik alternatives, Anbox and such? Is it usable on community ports? There are unfortunately a few applications that I cannot avoid using and that have no native Sailfish version.

Re: AT LEAST Two More Blackberry Keyboard Phones Coming
 

OMG, how short do these things last? My N900 is 8 years old and my Jolla 1 is four. None of them are "dying".

Re: AT LEAST Two More Blackberry Keyboard Phones Coming
 

Would love to see mass production of Asus ee-PC mini laptops with Raspberry Pi 2 inside. Why not Raspberry Pi 3? Simple, I don't want to have to replace Raspberry Pi once wireless isn't working for some reason. Would rather use USB add-ons for wireless things, much more customisable. Raspeberry Pi 2 ver 1.2 sounds good, [Edit]not same, but similar[/edit] CPU as Raspberry Pi 3; no need to limit wireless to 802.11n. Also, decreases power usage when idle (220mA for Pi2 1.2, 300mA for Pi3).

Paspberry Pi Zero PCB ver 1.3 also sounds promising for ultra-low power consumption of 100mA when idle, but: it would need a USB hub, a TRRS jack, and Ethernet port.

I have to say, I am annoyed at concept of memory shared between CPU and GPU; cannot each of them have their own RAM? But that's Raspberry's choice.

Make the prototypes first, though ;-) Li-ion can be tricky, and cases are trouble, too.

P.S. Would like to see guides on rejuvenating old laptops with new hardware. Currently, there are one or two laptops around which, besides old hardware (still usable), have problems with LCD displays (which will become unusable in a few years, I guess; typical for this lifebook model, in my experience).

Would be neat.

Wish it changed soon. They did switch to Android recently...

Then why did Jolla choose I2C, such a crippled solution? It's ironic that Jolla got a variety of TOHs (infrared imaging and eInk display, besides keyboard and battery), while I haven't heard about such a variety of addons available for Moto Z.

Agree, sliders are neat. Especially when most new phones now are just slatebar.

Thank you. Best wishes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Per aspera ad astra...

Re: AT LEAST Two More Blackberry Keyboard Phones Coming
 

My N900s and Jolla are still fine, except for the yellowish side of the screen on the Jolla, but the Jolla C has suffered more falls and survived way longer than any modern phone would have, probably thanks to the removable battery and plastic case that help absorbing shocks.

In fact the Jolla C is still ok, but would need a fresh install due to lots of unfinished/uncleaned tweaks I did, and someone scrached the screen badly by putting it with sharp metallic objects in a tiny case during a car trip, which now makes me want a new phone. It just needs a new screen, or even just a new screen protector, and time to clean up the software side. I just want Chen's qwerty slider phone and find excuses.

Re: AT LEAST Two More Blackberry Keyboard Phones Coming
 

"ultra low" ? Isn't that quite high ? it would deplete a 2000mAh in less than a day while idle ? My Jolla with network active can stay for at least 3 days on a single charge with minimal use.

That's the solution used by all (most?) integrated GPU even on Intel processors and some external ones (like my Nvidia GPU on my desktop). There are cost and complexity issues that lead to these choices.
It also gives flexibility, if you don't need the GPU memory (running headless for example), you can take it back for the CPU...

No idea...only interface available maybe ?
Or they were targeting some small sensors and not "real" extensibility of the phone. At some point i remember Marc Dillon talking of things like blood glucose sensor for diabetes, which would work correctly with I2C.

Really ?
A bunch of them exists : https://www.verizonwireless.com/accessories/moto-mods/
And except for keyboard and battery, none would have been possible with I2C.
All the TOH where hacked by community. The infrared imaging would not be as useful (8x8 pixels), compared to the normal ones you get from FLIR (works easily on all phones with USB OTG, so a huge market compared to the TOH) are at least 80x60 pixels with fast refresh, that for example gives enough resolution to allow troubleshooting PCBs with detail on with SMD component is dissipating more than it should.
But we already had that talk a lot of times in TMO... and were are again out of topic ;)

Re: AT LEAST Two More Blackberry Keyboard Phones Coming
 

Such an odd combination of touchscreen and physical keyboard....