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Comment by CalRobert | Hacker News Reader

Remember when phones had keyboards? Like, actual physical keyboards that slid out when you needed them and tucked away neatly when you didn't?

I really miss them :-(

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Given how huge the mobile phone industry, it don't understand why some manufacturer* hasn't carved out a niche for keyboard phones. Since all the manufactures have arrived at the roughly the same form factor and spec, maybe we'll start to see one of them try something different again.

* Other than Blackberry. Despite being a BB10 user, I can understand why the general population isn't attracted to it.

You know, maybe it's time to see about sourcing a small keyboard, 4.5" or so display, and trying to squeeze down an Odroid to make your own phone. Might even make sense to make it wifi only and rely on Voip for some use cases.

I always found that they keyboards weren't much better than on-screen. I make about the same number of typos either way, and frankly my corporate Blackberry's keyboard is a travesty. Little tiny keys with shitty action, your fingers slipping from one to the other. The original Motorola Droid had a decent keyboard, which was sort of nice in the days of itty-bitty screens, but these days if you offered me a Nexus 5 with keyboard I'd say "No, thanks, I'm good."

The best Android experience I ever had was an HTC Touch Pro 2. Amazingly, this was a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone that you could install Android on with a bit of a hack. The keyboard was sublime; running a terminal was a thing of beauty. Now every touch screen is a pathetic piece of junk where you have to retype stuff three times just to get the right word, and of course typing while using the full screen is out of the question.

Of course, it's also possible I'm just incredibly fat-fingered.

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