Still have this device somewhere

and 2 HTC Diamonds ( Windows CE ) - lol

        • theskyisfalling@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          15
          ·
          2 months ago

          There have been plenty, some that have come to fruition. The first and only thing I have ever back was the planet computers “Astro Slide”, I will never participate in crowd funding again after that fucking shit show.

          At the end of the day though they don’t usually attract enough backers to really make a decent product out if it, which is a shame.

            • theskyisfalling@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              10
              ·
              2 months ago

              Yeh,i had the titan for around a year and a half. It was a decent piece of hardware with a keyboard that was fairly decent (not as good as blackberry still).

              The problem with them is the software and support. The keyboards just about work but aren’t integrated into the whole experience like you got with a blackberry. It always felt a bit awkward and some choices were just weird, as if the programmers never tried actually using what they programmed.

              I tried to put a custom ROM on mine but could never get the boot loader to unlock as it should have so ultimately I gave up as the positives for me of having a keyboard were being outweighed by the jank

          • idunnololz@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            edit-2
            2 months ago

            I also think it’s really hard to engineer a good slide phone. Modern smartphones are already really compact. So you either (1) make an affordable slide phone with terrible specs and ok engineering or (2) make a slide phone with excellent specs and engineering but costs a huge amount of money. And I am going to guess most small companies cannot engineer anything like (2) so you just end up with slide phones with bad specs and it’s only selling point is that it has a sliding keyboard. This phone will not sell well.

            • theskyisfalling@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              2 months ago

              I don’t even want the slide mechanism, just the keyboard. Blackberry keytwo is the greatest phone / form factor of recent years imo

              • idunnololz@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                4
                ·
                2 months ago

                I believe there is a a keyboard case called Clicks however it appears to only be aimed at iPhones. If it’s a huge deal to you this is one possible solution.

                • theskyisfalling@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  4
                  ·
                  2 months ago

                  There is a project that repurposes a blackberry keyboard to make a detachable android keyboard that I have saved somewhere. Phones are too big as it is however and adding that on, plus the cost being about 50% again over what I spent on the actual phone I’m not super keen on that.

                  I just want a blackberry key three xD

            • Omniraptor@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              2 months ago

              idk I’d be perfectly fine with having a bulkier phone in exchange for a keyboard.

          • Fuzzy_Red_Panda@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            8
            ·
            2 months ago

            Nonono. To hell with that phone and that company. i bought one and it just now got delivered, three years later.

            It’s underpowered and a broken mess. And the keyboard isn’t the best, which is insane for a phone whose whole selling point is the keyboard. I was expecting it to be on par with my old Sidekick phones. Nope. So disappointing.

      • simple@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        2 months ago

        I mean it sounds good on paper but who’s going to want to buy a phone that’s 2x thicker because it has a sliding keyboard? No doubt it’ll be really expensive to make too.

        • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          21
          ·
          2 months ago

          I don’t understand the obsession with thinness. My phone has a case on it and already is like 2x as thick as a current phone and it’s fine. If anything it makes it easier to hold on to and type on. While I don’t care about having a physical keyboard, there’s a lot of other stuff they could do if they didn’t care so much about making it as thin as possible.

          • piccolo@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            ·
            2 months ago

            I like how phones become so thin then need to jut out to make room for the cameras so they cant even lie flat anymore… so dumb

        • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          19
          ·
          edit-2
          2 months ago

          People who want a keyboard, that’s who.

          I don’t get why people go around acting like these phones did not physically exist in the past in significant numbers, and both the “expense” and thickness problems were not, in fact, problems.

          My old Galaxy S Relay 4G was not appreciably any thicker than my current phone is with its case on it. And the Blackberry Priv I had after that was still exactly as thin as current modern phones.

          • simple@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            ·
            2 months ago

            You’re comparing the market 10+ years ago to the market now… Your old phone was tiny compared to modern phones, which is a market that barely exists anymore because people prefer larger screens. It’s one thing for a smaller phone to have a sliding keyboard, but slapping one on an already big phone would make it heavier and clunkier to use. The fact that touch screens are way bigger means that using a touch screen keyboard is much easier than it used to be, making slide out keyboards unnecessary.

            I don’t understand why every tech community acts like their niche opinions apply to the whole market. “Everyone wants small phones, we all want sliding keyboards, remember when operating systems were simple?” etc etc. I guarantee you if someone ACTUALLY made the type of phone you want it would barely sell and be seen as a gimmick.

            • fern@lemmy.autism.place
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              2 months ago

              Your old phone was tiny compared to modern phones

              This seems to invalidate your statement about thickness being important, and total volume is about the same.

              • simple@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                2 months ago

                How? His phone was still thicker than phones now and that doesn’t have a cover.

                • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  2 months ago

                  The Priv wasn’t. Read the entire post. The Priv from Blackberry/TCL had a slider keyboard and altogether was 9.5mm thick. My current Moto G Power 5G is 8.5. An iPhone 16 is 8.25. This is not an appreciable difference.

                  Obviously there’s not any technical reason anyone couldn’t make a modern slider as thin as current slates, it’s just that with the discontinuation of the Priv nobody does. And that’s not even getting into fixed keyboard designs.

                  • simple@lemm.ee
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    2
                    ·
                    2 months ago

                    And imagine how much they sacrificed to make it 9.5mm. Not to mention that phone is an outlier (and the iphone 16 is actually 7.8mm). Priorities changed, phones now need more space for things like a bigger battery, better cameras, bigger heatsinks for faster performance and less throttling.

                    There are technical reasons. You can’t just put in a sliding keyboard on a modern phone and expect it to work the same. They’ll have to cut on so much to fit that without being too thick, and in the end you’ll end up with a phone that’s worse in every way and probably more expensive, for a feature so little people want.

          • The Quuuuuill@slrpnk.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            2 months ago

            I stopped buying keyboard phones when the manufacturers stopped selling them to me. They don’t actually care what the market demands, they care about what the market will accept with the highest profit margins. A mid-spec phone with a keyboard coming in under the price of a flagship should actually be a feasible product, but by creating that product, you’re reducing your profit/unit just that little bit…

    • Eiri@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      2 months ago

      I loved my Samsung Galaxy Q. But now that I’m used to gesture typing, I wouldn’t go back. It’s much faster than hitting keys individually with my thumbs.

      One thing I do miss though is how quick it was to select/copy/paste.

      • niucllos@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        2 months ago

        Gesture typing is definitely faster, but I find it much less accurate and requires vision. My old sliding phone I could write whole essays in my hoodie pocket while walking home with few to no typos, which was a niche use-case for sure but an existing one. I work outside a fair amount and would love having that back for notetaking in the field

        • Eiri@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          2 months ago

          I’m guessing you’ve already tried, but just in case: would dictation work for you?

          • niucllos@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            2 months ago

            It works great for notes, it’s not great for recording data because if it mishears me/I mumble once an entire set of 500+ observations can be frame shifted away from their identifiers and I have to redo it