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Comment by maxsilver | Hacker News Reader

You can have both, with no drawbacks.

My favourite phone ever designed was the BlackBerry Priv. It was an Android-based smartphone with a full-sized (5.4in) touchscreen, an completely-hidden slide-out physical keyboard, that also doubled as a touch-sensitive pad.

You could "swipe" (touchscreen-style) over the keys, and then press down on those same physical keys simultaneously. But you could also slide it back into the phone, and use it just like any other iPhone or Android ever made.

It's the best of both worlds, really.

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Yes, plus not losing 1/2 the screen to an on-screen keyboard.

Was almost pure android, incredibly secure. Blackberry got it right, then bailed.

Ex-Blackberry here. BB didn't bail; not enough people were buying the phones for hardware manufacturing to be self-sustainable.

Yes, but, you cannot build a new brand in a couple of years. If you look at the Wikipedia article, you'll see the Priv, the first all android Blackberry, was released in 2015, and they bailed in late 2016.

You cannot re-invent a brand in a bit more than a year. They should have expected years to see significant adoption.

Worse, the people who trusted Blackberry, often didn't want a Chinese company making their hardware.

Sad really.

What really got me, was how much people I showed the Priv to, and the slide out keyboard loved it.

An example, I was on a plane. Guy next to me, a Canadian, had never heard of or seen the Priv, and had a Samsung.

When he saw me scrolling a webpage up and down with the touchpad/hardware keyboard, use it for gestures, then type with swipe completion via the hardware keyboard, and keep a full screen, he immediately wanted one.

I had to tell him the last security update was 2 months ago, and it looked like the end of line.

How many people didn't even know? I wonder that, to this day.

Further to that, phone purchase cycles are often 3 or 4 years. They gave it no chance IMO.

> 2015

iPhone happened 2007, Android, 2008. Their “people love our software never hardware” self deception had completely wiped positive brand values by that point, along with trust from the market towards mobile hardware keyboard, because BB engaged anyone getting close to their level of sophistication in the technology, rendering competitors’ implementations inconsistent and lackluster as the result.

I still don’t fully understand serial suicides in phone market 2007-2012, it was strange times. Lots of companies were politely asked to finish their free lunch session and most decided to burn their retirement instead of accepting it.

I think, in a market like this, if a new type of product appears, and starts gaining massive traction?

The CEO, the board, the top execs, marketing, etc, need to force use that product exclusively. So they know. So they get it.

Because it seemed like many floundered by not understanding the differences, what was important.

RIM could have done so much, but they didn't even get it, or seem to understand why people were bailing.

Where was RIM's board? CEO replacement took too long too.

Ah well.

My KeyOne is actually better due to losing half the screen - I remember trying to open a webpage and a notes app and type in some notes from the page. My Oneplus 3, whenever I pulled up the keyboard, would shift everything up, making it impossible to see what I had focused on. My KeyOne never shifted the view though, because the keyboard was already there.

Even better is the effect this has on battery life. The screen is the biggest battery drain on nearly every phone, and so having a little less means my phone lasts all weekend on a single charge. Because I don't watch video on my phone (or read the bottom half of the screen) anyways, there's really no drawback for me to "losing" a third of my screen, only benefits

My comment was about how on-screen, software keyboards eat 1/2 the active screen.

The Priv had a slide out hardware keyboard, the optimal solution IMO. Full size screen on the device, hardware keyboard too.

I know what you mean, but the keyone didn't lose 1/2 its screen, to lose something, you have to have it first. If it lost 1/2 its screen, it would end up with 1/4 of phone's length with usable screen.

Agree with all you said about software keyboards.

My mistake then, I completely misread what you meant. I thought it was more in the Steve Jobs meaning of losing half the screen; I.E., it's taken up by the keyboard.

The phone had a lot of complaints about getting hot while in use. The camera was also quite poor, which in 2015 was a dealbreaker.

I did run into someone using it though, and when I asked him how he liked it, he said it was great. The keyboard was more important to him than anything else.

BlackBerry's keyboard software is excellent too. I use BlackBerry Keyboard[1] on my compact Xperia. The auto-suggests appear on the keys themselves. This saves valuable real-estate compared to having an extra row of words above the keyboard.

Sadly BlackBerry haven't released new hardware for ~3 years and their software is barely on life support. A shame since they have a knack for functional design.

[1]https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blackberry...

I was going to try that keyboard out but it isn't compatible with my phone (Android 10). Not sure why.

BlackBerry only lets BlackBerry hardware install it from the playstore. BlackBerry Manager[1] was an MIT licensed program that let you patch and install on unauthorized devices. Sadly, it looks like repository was deleted in the last few months(DMCA?). Silly considering they haven't released any Android 10 devices.

Maybe there's still BlackBerry Manager apks around. I'd recommend trying it out, it's still an excellent typing experience. Haven't found anything to replace it yet.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20201121204253/https://github.co...

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