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Comment by SamBam | Hacker News Reader

Wait, what? So how do you type? Minuscule touch keyboard on the screen?

Edit, yes, here's a video.[1] The thing is also a lot bigger and thicker in the hands than I realized.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVzuT6eYZUA

That video clearly shows the user typing using the number pad. So no worries there. I agree, if that were not possible, that would be a little bit silly. This is a perfect example of why I never trust reviews. People are either just really stupid, or they are fake/ paid for.

I think they meant letters, in the video I only see him typing numbers from the phone keypad. I think they person you replied to is talking about T9/pressing-the-number-X-times-to-get-a-letter type things.

Yeah the [Freetel Mushashi](https://www.gsmchoice.com/en/catalogue/freetel/musashi/) had it back in the day, so it's possible but apparently not implemented.

Video shows letter input from the keypad.

https://youtu.be/GVzuT6eYZUA?t=107

At https://youtu.be/GVzuT6eYZUA?t=107 he types with the keyboard

Watching that video the phone was a lot bigger than I thought, I was hoping for something compact but this thing is really chonky.

If you look at the screen, the only thing he "types" at that timestamp is one "#", then he presses the screen with his thumb, then a types "##########"

I'm pretty sure you never see him typing letters.

No, that was at a previous part of the video. Look at the timestamp I posted.

The parent comment's link goes directly to a portion of the video where he types "fdro" and then taps on the "F-Droid" search result.

A bit after that he switches to a keyboard called "Kika" which appears to enable typing with the keypad and provides predictions. A bigger objection to this device to me would be the fact that UI animations appear to chug like a freshman at his first kegger and overall it doesn't look to be all that responsive.

You know after watching a couple of times I realized the chonkyness is partially an optical illusion. The bevel on the top of the screen makes it look like a huge box from the camera angle you bookmarked in your link.

It definitely big, but there are some clues in the video that the presenter may be a fairly short person as well. So the fact that it looks huge in his hands may have something to do with his hands and not entirely the phone's fault.

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