- Registrado
- 26 de Nov, 2018
Lmao long phones
Physical Keyboard Smart Phones - The rarest breed of phone.
- Iniciador del tema Preacher ✝
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🇵🇦 Nuestro primer dominio localizado está en español en kiwifarms.pa. Our first localized domain is on Spanish on kiwifarms.pa.
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- Registrado
- 4 de Jul, 2022
Taking the guts of a cheap damaged Z Flip phone and connecting it to a Blackberry keyboard using a USB adapter in a custom shell is a clever approach:
(preservetube)
I don't like the long vertical orientation of the Clicks keyboards. Using a keyboard below a horizontal screen feels better.
ShapelyMutton
kiwifarms.net
- Registrado
- 2 de Sep, 2019
Unihertz Titan 2 Elite announced much to the disdain of Titan 2 purchasers who've only received their phones within the past 6 months.
- Registrado
- 11 de Jul, 2022
I like the look of that, much better than the normal Titan 2.
ShapelyMutton
kiwifarms.net
- Registrado
- 2 de Sep, 2019
You might also look at the recently announced Clicks Communicator(They previously just produced keyboard cases)
Council of Clermont
kiwifarms.net
- Registrado
- 14 de Ago, 2025
I never had a full keyboard phone back in the day, but I always wanted one ever since I was a teenager. In 2019 a UK startup called Fxtec released a sliding phone called the Pro 1, with limited success.
The next year they crowdfunded a successor, the Pro 1 X, and I decided to back it. It ended up being an absolutely biblical fuckup. The planned SoC (same as the original Pro 1) reached EOL just before manufacturing started, meankng they had to redesign the phone almost from scratch after the campaign was finished. The replacement SoC was significantly less powerful. The camera was also downgraded. It took two years for the phone to ship, in which time Fxtec ran out of money. And then there were bullshit QC problems like poor battery design causing many phones to be bricked on delivery. I finally got mine in 2023, only to discover it was missing antenna bands for my carrier anyway.
The Clicks Communicator looks really good, but I worry about carrier compatibility. I've bought 2 other phones off-contract before, and they also had unusably-bad cellular connections, even when my carrier validated their IMEI numbers and said they were compatible. As much as I fucking hate the slab design, if the keyboard phones won't work as a phone, it's moot.
The next year they crowdfunded a successor, the Pro 1 X, and I decided to back it. It ended up being an absolutely biblical fuckup. The planned SoC (same as the original Pro 1) reached EOL just before manufacturing started, meankng they had to redesign the phone almost from scratch after the campaign was finished. The replacement SoC was significantly less powerful. The camera was also downgraded. It took two years for the phone to ship, in which time Fxtec ran out of money. And then there were bullshit QC problems like poor battery design causing many phones to be bricked on delivery. I finally got mine in 2023, only to discover it was missing antenna bands for my carrier anyway.
The Clicks Communicator looks really good, but I worry about carrier compatibility. I've bought 2 other phones off-contract before, and they also had unusably-bad cellular connections, even when my carrier validated their IMEI numbers and said they were compatible. As much as I fucking hate the slab design, if the keyboard phones won't work as a phone, it's moot.
That's interesting; I have a Titan and I've had zero problems on any WiFi. I've heard that Unihertz' build quality is spotty though. Apparently the Titan 2 launch was their roughest so far, and I'm sure the announcement of the Elite doesn't make any Titan 2 owner feel any better.
- Registrado
- 11 de Jul, 2022
After watching technology develop for multiple decades you gain a sort of sixth sense for when something is going to be good or not.
I could tell by looking at the Titan 2 that it wasn't up to snuff. The design seemed unrefined, the screen was at least two generations behind, and they keyboard looked bad.
Meanwhile the Titan 2 Elite shows more promise, and at least from the pictures released of it I'm not getting any immediate red flags.
- Registrado
- 16 de Nov, 2022
This phone was the dogs bollocks. Perfect in every way and lasted me a good 4 years or so before I was forced to upgrade to android.
RIP baby E7 that's sat in my cellar somewhere. You were too good for this world.
Council of Clermont
kiwifarms.net
- Registrado
- 14 de Ago, 2025
Whatever happened to the Astro Slide, besides having the gayest name of all time?
Planet Computers seemed like a reputable company. I bought the Gemini PDA from them, and with Debian it was so good that I actually used it as my daily-driver laptop for a few months. Meanwhile the Astro Slide campaign launched 6 fucking years ago, no updates since mid-2023, and their site is still listing it for sale on a waitlist. If it was anywhere near the quality of the Gemini PDA, I'd buy one in a heartbeat, but it seems it was just vaporware.
Planet Computers seemed like a reputable company. I bought the Gemini PDA from them, and with Debian it was so good that I actually used it as my daily-driver laptop for a few months. Meanwhile the Astro Slide campaign launched 6 fucking years ago, no updates since mid-2023, and their site is still listing it for sale on a waitlist. If it was anywhere near the quality of the Gemini PDA, I'd buy one in a heartbeat, but it seems it was just vaporware.
- Registrado
- 14 de Jul, 2024
the titan 2 is not a design focused device it's a $400 chinese phone constrained by patents and avaliable stock. It's very good for something in that category. it's no blackberry but they didn't throw hundreds of millions of dollars to design it either. It's got raw touchpad input which is what i always wanted out of the blackberry androids, it's definitely coded for enthusiasts and nerds.
It took me like three days to get used to the different keyboard layout so in my mind it's not even a legitimate concern, but a lot of people seem to think it is, it's the main criticism of the phone when it gets posted. i think it's just the uncertainty of buying something with no direct alternatives or competitors, and i think the chinese are hyper-sensitive to that kind of criticism. They've released absolutely nothing about the titan 2 elite besides a render to confirm to the public it's going to have the blackberry keyboard layout because the patent expired six months ago.
it's going to be six months before the kickstarter goes live and like a year and a half until the devices ship, and then like six months after that for them to release a software update that fixes the teething issues. to me, the titan 2 elite is just a very blatant attempt at getting their foot in the door to ameliorate their relationship with the peanut gallery by just announcing the thing they were already working on, because they want to compete with the clicks communicator. they've pretty much been completely uncontested in the physical keyboard market and now there's a bunch of trendy western companies enroaching on their territory with a device specifically designed to cater to trend chasing normies. The titan 2 is the exact opposite of that. You know the chinks are panicking right now
planet computers and fxtec both promised really weird keyboard devices a long time ago that never really materialized and they both struck me as those old school meme renders such as "/g/ makes a cell phone" or "usenet's ideal imac" where they just cram a bunch of features into a device with no regard for how it's actually going to be used. I think it was some attempt to supercede blackberry with a bigger, bolder, and more committed input method than a thumb keyboard but they were riding entirely on posturing and relativism with absolutely zero thought put into how people are going to use the device which kind of defeats the whole purpose of it. I think they were trying to capture a market and listened to the peanut gallery (hardware symbol keys! landscape! on screen nav buttons! linux support!) instead of just making a good phone
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- Registrado
- 11 de Jul, 2022
It looks really nice, I reserved one. Now that the patent for the BlackBerry Keyboard is public we're gonna see some good stuff.
Council of Clermont
kiwifarms.net
- Registrado
- 14 de Ago, 2025
I admit I was in the front row of the peanut gallery, and I wanted all sorts of esoteric features that didn't contribute to the quality of the phone. I assumed since the Pro 1 went over well, they had the basic phone design nailed. How wrong I was.
That explains a lot of the Titan 2 Elite's design. I wonder if we're going to see a slew of copycats soon.
- Registrado
- 11 de Jul, 2022
I'm not gonna lie, I was beginning to think the project, or my scam senses, had completely failed.
Between the lack of updates and promising phones like the Clicks Communicator or the Titan 2 Elite on the Horizon, it was starting to look like the BrackBerry Crassic (Q25 Pro) was going to be vaporware.
UNTIL NOW
My BrackBerry Crassic has shipped!
I still plan to do this, and the chance it won't live up to the hype remains, but at least its real!
- Registrado
- 14 de Jul, 2024
The blackberry classic doesn't have a capacative keyboard, does it? it just has the blackberry trackball? Waaaay back in the day android supported trackballs natively. If trackballs just act like they did on android 2.0 then you're probably fine. I guess the question is, how good are the drivers for the peripherals or is it just going to be chinked?
The keyone had a mouse mode snuck into the developer settings but the key2 never got that. on apps that run on SDL you can change the mouse translation layer to just use the touchpad input as mouse input like a trackpad. It worked on OpenTTD, i tried to modify openRCT2 to do the same by changing a few variables in the code a long time ago (because they didn't expose the SDL debug menu) but never got around to figuring out how to compile it. It would be kind of funny if the chinkberry just used a mouse
The keyone had a mouse mode snuck into the developer settings but the key2 never got that. on apps that run on SDL you can change the mouse translation layer to just use the touchpad input as mouse input like a trackpad. It worked on OpenTTD, i tried to modify openRCT2 to do the same by changing a few variables in the code a long time ago (because they didn't expose the SDL debug menu) but never got around to figuring out how to compile it. It would be kind of funny if the chinkberry just used a mouse
- Registrado
- 11 de Jul, 2022
I'm pretty sure it did not have a capacitive keyboard like the Key series did, but it does have a touchscreen in addition to the trackball. How well the trackball is supported is something I won't really know until it arrives but even if its just the touchscreen thats enough.
- Registrado
- 14 de Jul, 2024
The thing I really enjoy about the titan 2 is that you can navigate and interact with apps using the touch keyboard. The blackberry androids just abstracted the touchpad input into basically a giant scroll wheel and it was nice but the titan is better. The titan is just mapping a portion of the keyboard to a portion of the screen but it makes for... "emergent interfaces?"
I can switch browser tabs by tapping on the bottom row of keys, scroll sidebars by scrolling that part of the keyboard. In the youtube app you can scrub the timeline by swiping in between the middle row of keys. If I don't want to adjust my hand on my phone to press something on the top of the screen I can just tap on the keyboard in the right spot. It's not consistent and every piece of advice about touchscreen interfaces says "don't use inconsistient touch inputs" especially an indirect input with no feedback but it still ends up being an enjoyable user experience, probably because touchscreen input is still so loose and imprecise that you still end up double or triple tapping smaller screen elements half of the time anyways
I can switch browser tabs by tapping on the bottom row of keys, scroll sidebars by scrolling that part of the keyboard. In the youtube app you can scrub the timeline by swiping in between the middle row of keys. If I don't want to adjust my hand on my phone to press something on the top of the screen I can just tap on the keyboard in the right spot. It's not consistent and every piece of advice about touchscreen interfaces says "don't use inconsistient touch inputs" especially an indirect input with no feedback but it still ends up being an enjoyable user experience, probably because touchscreen input is still so loose and imprecise that you still end up double or triple tapping smaller screen elements half of the time anyways
- Registrado
- 11 de Jul, 2022
Capacitive keyboards are really cool, and I hope we see advancement in that field of technology during this resurgence in the form factor.
Does the Titan 2 have programmable key shortcuts? That was the feature I really liked about the BlackBerry Key Series phones. You could map individual keys to a long list of functions ranging from launching an app, to calling a contact or navigating to a bookmark.
- Registrado
- 14 de Jul, 2024
Yeah there's a keyboard shortcuts menu that says its built into the default launcher. the programmable keys have a "magic key" option and it lets you use them outside the launcher. I never used that feature I just rebound it to back/home on the key2. I use an app called buttons remapper to do that kind of stuff I've been using since I had a priv
I use t-ui as a launcher which lets me launch apps by typing in a few letters so I can basically just open any app I want in three or four keystrokes without having to configure anything
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- Registrado
- 25 de Dic, 2020
I’ve been thinking of ordering that magnetic clicks keyboard? Has anyone here tried any of their previous products and has something to speak on about the quality/durability of their previous keyboards?
- Registrado
- 26 de Oct, 2023
I ordered a kit a few weeks ago, and I fucking hate everybody in this stupid discord. They are all total faggots, and if anybody has any kind of question like "why is there no official documentation?", "why wasn't this communicated properly?", "why are you just letting random chinese people on youtube provide the official build instructions?", "why are you taking $300-400 orders if you can't answer any of these questions?", the tranny discord mods come in and start acting like you're harassing them. Then they act like you should be able to easily find some random discord message with no relevant keywords from seven months ago as if you've been lurking 24/7 for a year like they've been. Then all of the chaser freaks who also got scammed hit your very reasonable question with
reacts. They are seriously some of the craziest people I have seen in the wild.Ben here is a moderator, and is likely to be one of the first people to respond to you when you have a question about your hundreds of dollars purchase.
one of the tranny mods explaining that if you insert a sim tray ejector pin you will brick your device and simultaneously finger doxing himself...
melty in the mod announcements because people are asking too many questions...
Even Reddit recognizes this bullshit
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