BlackBerry KEY2 LE: The first budget Android QWERTY for years On a recent press trip to IFA, I noticed several journalists discreetly packed a BlackBerry as a second phone. By day they wrote about gadgets, and the BlackBerry wouldn't get name-dropped. But they clearly felt it had value on gruelling long days. Or maybe it's the buttons, which make instant access to alerts and data far …
Unfortunately Hacker's Keyboard was recently pulled from the Play Store. They're currently in appeal.
https://github.com/klausw/hackerskeyboard/issues/668
Funny thing is I had been using Hacker's Keyboard up until a few months ago, but the English completion dictionary disappeared from the store. Now the dictionary is back but the keyboard app is gone.
"Unfortunately Hacker's Keyboard was recently pulled from the Play Store."
F-Droid has it. That's where I installed it from.
https://github.com/klausw/hackerskeyboard/issues/668
Which mentions a few places you can get it, including F-Droid, and obviously Github.
"Funny thing is I had been using Hacker's Keyboard up until a few months ago, but the English completion dictionary disappeared from the store."
Those should be "available from the website" according to F-Droid. Which means Github I think.
Landscape? Really? You do realise how that would impact the usable screen don't you?
I have a KeyOne which is very similar in size and a quick shows the keyboard would take half of the screen area if they tried that unless they went for a more square phone a la the Passport as the keyboard needs a strip about 4cm tall to fit in the keys.
Yep. I loved my Sony Ericcson Xperia Pro, and then a EU converted Motorola after that. I'd still be using them if they had enough power.
As it is, I'm still on my (insecure, because Blackberry stopped issuing updates) Priv, and trying to decide whether to buy a KEY2 (too expensive at the moment, maybe a Black Friday sale?). The Moto Mod keyboard is dead. The 'Q device' - not holding my breath on that arriving. The Gemini - well, it's not a phone, is it - form factor is a bit too large to pick up and put down, and it's fecking expensive.
If the Key2 gets close to £400 I'll probably go for it, which still rankles as the screen is smaller than the Priv, and there's only two years of guaranteed security updates at that point.. I'm not going for an LE, as the swiping functionality in the keyboard is very useful.
The Nokia E7 had a great form factor: a really nice slide out landscape keyboard, which was very quick and comfortable for typing on. Even if you were using the phone in portrait mode, it quickly became almost an automatic reaction to turn, flip, slide, type, if you wanted to write anything more than a few words. And there was nothing stopping you from using the on-screen keyboard in either portrait or landscape mode if you wanted.
(Unfortunately, Nokia set fire to Symbian (and also MeeGo) before I could find out just what the longevity of the admittedly somewhat complicated hinge arrangement really was…)
I had a Sony Ericsson P1i where the keys could be pressed left or right for separate letters. Very efficient and compact and surprisingly comfortable. That was a good alternative to landscape. Bringing an updated P1i back would make me happy. Especially the baseband part was excellent and I never lost a call.
Dear phone makers,
landscape QWERTY. L-a-n-d-s-c-a-p-e.
This makes me so sad. All I've ever wanted since 1997 was a Psion 5 with a nicer screen and a decent modem built in. I don't even want the software changed, it was just fine as it was before Nokia got their hands on it and ruined everything.
I know people who used Psion 5s and IR connected phones for all their mobile business needs. Pretty cool, especially for the late 1990s. In Japan in particular, where the road warriors struggled from meeting to meeting lugging a heavy laptop around, being able to do the same thing with nothing but a Psion 5 in the suit pocket was showing off big time. And, this being Japan, you'd not need an overnight bag either. Psion never, ever thought to do a Japanese version, they'd have made it big time had they done that.
The Gemini is a PDA/mini computer, not a phone. A phone is something you can hold in one hand.
With the Blackberry phones you can operate them one handed (although typing one handed on a Priv is very awkward). You have a choice of swiping, or typing (which is better with two hands).
The landscape Xperia Pro and the Droid phones I had previously featured a keyboard that slid out from under the screen.
Pick up one handed, swipe a bit, possibly use the keyboard using your second hand, return to one handed use, put it down closing the keyboard with a single hand. If it can't do that, it's a failure as a keyboard phone.
It's also possible to switch a landscape Android phone to portrait mode with the keyboard closed, which you might want to do for portrait optimised/poorly developed Android apps. That's going to look exceedingly silly with a Gemini, if it's even possible.
Not really. There are several usage models for Blackberry.
There's the whole secure device, certificate of trust model wanted by some businesses and individuals.
Then there's 'I want an Android device with a keyboard'. I don't care about the secure kernel, and wish I could root the device to ensure continued updates, and the ability to do things such as extended ad blocking, etc.
It's a bonus to have the Hub software, and the keyboard/soft keyboard are both great. DTEK is a chocolate teapot, however.
We need more phone manufacturers to produce Android phones in form factors other than a standard touch screen rectangle. Perhaps if some of the also rans starting to thing outside what Apple, Samsung, Google produce. They might find they can grow their market share for those who would like a Qwerty keyboard.
TCL's BlackBerry Mobile clearly thinks there are businesses prepared to make make bulk purchases of QWERTYs in 2018, especially one with a suggested retail price of £349
Amazon starts at 527.28. Which is an immediate NO. If it was 350 I would have considered it, but at that price. Nope. I will continue suffering from typing on a capacitive screen.
Maybe y7 can type daater ok no. Capacitive touch keyboard, but 2-@5# the poibt wjeb y97 spend nor3 time fixing ty09#?
Translation:
Maybe you can type faster on capacitive keyboard, but what's the point when you spend more time fixing typos?
Or at least, despite efforts I still can't type better than the above on touchscreen. Mind, I held out with qwerty until 2014 or so, so I've only had 4 years practice time..
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