I want a physical QWERTY keyboard Android
27th October 2014
My motivation is simple, and Kevin Michaluk had nicely written down the benefits of physical keyboards: Why there’s still demand in 2014 for phones with physical keyboards. For many years I’ve been using Nokia E71, and now, after switching to a screen-only Android 4.4.2 device, I dearly miss the physical keyboard (and the compact, durable metal phone body, too, as well as week-long battery life…).
I really hope that phone manufacturers offer something that:
- is about the size of E71, possibly slightly higher/wider/thicker
- has a physical QWERTY keyboard, either E71-style or a slider
- runs Android Lollipop
- has decent (but not necessarily the best) smartphone hardware (5-8+MP camera, 1.4+GHzCPU, 1.5+GB RAM, 8+GB internal storage, etc)
- has a good screen, e.g. HD (~4.3-4.7″) for a slider-keyboard version, or half-HD for Nokia-style keyboard
- is minimally waterproof (can withstand heavy rain for 30 minutes)
Reasonable price would also be welcome…