I have a Motorola Droid Global 2, almost four years old. I haven’t seen any reason to upgrade it, but it’s starting to flake out on me (sometimes won’t boot).
So I guess it’s off to the Verizon store to see if they have any new models with keyboards (they’ll take my keyboard away from my cold dead fingers).
[Update Tuesday morning, with much-needed rain in LA]
So I went to the store, and it turns out that no one puts keyboards on smart phones any more. The only way to get one is to buy a “basic” phone (that is, all it does is voice and text). So my options are to give up the keyboard with a new phone, or…go buy a replacement on Ebay, where they’re going for about $25. Or I could look for a more recent (but not current) phone with a keyboard, so I could at least get some improvement.
I am not that much concerned about keyboards. I can tell you that if I was going to buy a phone today it would be the One Plus because it is fantastically cheap. But their customer service leaves something to be desired.
http://www.cnet.com/products/oneplus-one/
If I wanted to spend more it would probably be the Samsung Galaxy Note 4.
http://www.cnet.com/products/samsung-galaxy-note-4/
The Google Nexus 6 is also supposedly good but kind of expensive.
I usually go to this site to compare specs on phones:
http://www.gsmarena.com
I took a look at their website. Your only choices are 3 old-school BlackBerrys.
I’ve seen clip-on Bluetooth keyboards for iPhones (ack!) and the Samsung Galaxy S 3 through 5.
They’re phasing out actual keyboards. The LG Extrovert II is a Verizon phone that has a slider keyboard–you might have to shop around a bit to find a store that carries them (try Best Buy, call around to check for availability).
Sorry, that’s a dumb phone. I don’t know about smart phones with keyboards.
Verizon seem to have none. My best option for now seems to be to buy a used or new version of my current phone as a replacement, or perhaps a more advanced model, but with a keyboard. Not anything new.
I think Blackberry still has some phones with keyboards. I would not personally buy one, as I got used to writing on a capacitive display virtual keyboard and now I think its a waste of device space for a lot of tasks, but if you really want a keyboard I think it will be hard to find a product other than those.
I do think the keyboard is indispensable at my workstation though.
http://www.gsmarena.com/results.php3?nYearMin=2013&idQwerty=1
I’m looking forward to the Cicret bracelet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J7GpVQCfms
I love my iPhone, and every iPhone I’ve ever had…with the exception of all of them, when it comes to the “m” key. It’s right next to the “backspace” key, so that any word with an “m” in it is probably going to lead to the demise of the entire message. I don’t know why they don’t fix that. If they did, the iPhone would be perfect. And I do mean PERFECT.
My third cell phone was a slider with a QWERTY keyboard. It also had an enormous button on the front that opened a web browser. Forget butt-dialing, this one was made to butt-surf, and not being a smartphone it didn’t come with a data plan.
What I like about soft keyboards is that I’m not stuck with what the manufacturer decided to give me; on my Android phone I can install any one of dozens of alternative keyoards just for English (there may even be Dvorak options out there, for the geekier-than-thou) and have as much shift/num/alt depth as I care to deal with — though what I use is Hacker’s, with the numbers on the default array. I wish the @ sign was on it too.
…so I wouldn’t have to shift at all when entering email addresses.
Since we’re talking about cell phones, this Technology review article threw me for a loop, with a trivial circuit that allows a radio to transmit and receive at the same time on the same frequency. They took 6 inductors and some capacitors to make resonators, then arranged the resonators in a loop to make a roundabout where signals can only travel in one direction (clockwise or counterclockwise, but not both). Then the transmitter, receiver, and antenna attach to the roundabout at three different points. The receiver can only see signals coming back from the antenna, not the ones going out. It’s so simple it could’ve predated the invention of the vacuum tube, but somehow nobody ever thought of it. There’s a schematic at the article linked in the Technology review piece.
The only problem I see would be reflected waves coming back from an external object and swamping the receiving signal, in which case you’d have to drop back to half-duplex.
do a google search on bluetooth keyboard cases and see what you come up with.
Sorry to rag on you, but why they hell would you go to a physical store?
Except for food, clothes or concrete, you will ALWAYS find more selection and cheaper prices online.
Because I couldn’t find the information I needed on the Verizon web site. I didn’t go to get a phone, just to see what they had available.
Ah, yes. The cell phone carriers do have awful websites.
It is now possible and practical in the US to subvert the carrier handset lock in. (you can transfer your existing number, for one) You can get a sim card from MetroPCS (or others) and put it in *any* phone you buy. I recommend this route so that you can exercise your freedom to buy the hardware you really want.
Your preference for a HW keyboard is an excellent use case for this.
Well, the big problem was that the Verizon site wouldn’t tell me which of the phones had keyboards. When I got to the store, it turned out that the reason why was that the answer was “none.”
Sound like the typical “fantastic” customer service from the cell phone oligopoly.
It would be worth it for you to buy the cheapo used phone (with keyboard) from ebay and attempt to transfer your existing sim card. YMMV, but I’ve done this with my ATT card from an iphone into a nexus. This would make you some kind of evil person in the eyes of your carrier.
FYI, http://www.swappa.com and http://www.glyde.com are additional sources for used phones. A friend used one and had a good experience.
Right there with you, I’m afraid. My Motorola Droid Pro – with keyboard – has become increasingly unreliable, slow, and also does not hold a charge very well. (Replace the battery? Yes, I did. Little improvement. I suspect most replacement batteries are second-hand with a coat of polish or something.)
I expect to replace it with a Droid Maxx or something similar and, as you said, no keyboard. I suspect I will get used to screen typing – everyone else has managed and I sometimes do it on my wife’s phone. Might try to get the voice entry thing working a bit better.
The bonus is, you get an updated operating system; Android has gone through a few versions since I bought my phone. Some of the things I have had to get kludge apps to take care of, like increasing font size, are now part of the operating system itself, which I hope means it works better.
Still, my condolences on the coming loss of your old friend.
I’m not ready to give up quite yet. I might get a Droid 3 (or 4, but the lack of removable battery may be a deal killer, despite the good reviews of the keyboard). They’re actually still available new, though I don’t know if I want to spend that much.
I kicked and screamed and fought tooth and nail to keep a physical keyboard but, in the end, I gave in, and got an iPhone.
My fears were unjustified. Using the screen keyboard is easier, and the autocorrect does an excellent job compensating for clumsy fingers. I’d never go back.
Give in and join the collective. It’ll only prolong the agony the longer you hold out.
I can only speak for the phone I own, which is an LG Optimus Slider. Pretty much a standard Optimus but with (shocker) a slide-out keyboard.
A possible downside is that it doesn’t have a separate row for numbers. On the other hand, it does include both a “.com” key and an “@” key, so McGehee should be happy. 🙂
My own prejudice for a physical keyboard comes having learned how to touch-type on an IBM Selectric, then working for several years with the first-gen IBM PCs. I really like having a physical & aural feedback while I type, not to mention my fat fingers.
From what I’ve read, the newer phones with larger screens help address the latter.
Is that LG GSM capable? That’s one of the benefits of the Droid.
After double-checking, it is, alas, a CDMA phone. Sorry.
I have a phone with a keyboard that runs Android. It’s a Huawei u8350. Some of the reviews I found for it were pretty hilarious – “smartphone in name only”, etc. It’s really underpowered and every months I feel the need for something faster, but it is small, has both touch screen and keyboard, and runs Android, which was all the requirements I have in a phone, for now.
Heh, and I just discovered the FM radio feature.. 🙂
I’m happy with the keyboard on my Galaxy S Relay, a full 5 row qwerty design that my large hands can use without fat fingering. Not sure they make that model any more, and when they did I don’t think all the major carriers supported it. It did come in a GSM model.
I’ve been quite happy with an aftermarket keyboard add-on for my keyboardless phone
How does that work when you’re just out and about? How big is it?
Never mind, I’ll go do a search for them, I know you’re busy.
I actually had a Droid 2 as well and was having the same problems. (plus my case broke and they don’t make Droid 2 cases) I initially bought it at the time because I shared your aversion to giving up keyboards, but as phones got larger it became less of an issue for me. I had an HTC one for work, which was larger, so tipping it on its side made the screen keyboard usable. For me thing I didn’t want to give up was my unlimited data plan, but when the phone finally became unusable, I bought Galaxy S5 during Best Buy’s $1 sale and I don’t have a problem with the screen keyboard at all.