I bought a Droid 4 twenty-one months ago.
As a devout user of physical QWERTY keyboards, I'm pretty sure I'm screwed.
Great article by Sean Hollister on the demise of the QWERTY slider. In the article, Hollister speaks with Doug Kaufman, manager of handset strategy for Sprint, and his revelations are intriguing - it's not so much that people do not want hardware keyboards; it's that people want iconic, flagship phones - like the S4, like the 5S - with huge marketing pushes. Since nobody is pushing a flagship QWERTY slider... Nobody buys them. However, when you ask consumers what they want, physical keyboards are very, very popular.
And so, Kaufman admits: if there was an HTC One or Galaxy S4, a top-of-the-line phone, but with a keyboard - it would sell.
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Member since:2011-01-05
Think that's probably true for better or worse.
Detachable keyboards or BT keyboards (that are better integrated) are prob more likely to continued to coexist, and evolve even.
Not that I'm a windows man, but if win phones had mini "touch covers" and "type covers"
I might could contemplate going for that we're it present on a next gen of the Lumia 1020.
Member since:
2005-06-29
The only problem with that is, she is using a Kyocera Rise on Sprint. While the phone was basically free on contract ($50 with a $50 rebate that we actually got), a replacement off-contract is over $300...for a low end device! Virgin Mobile carries a prepaid version of the same phone for under $100, but I've already asked about converting it to Sprint and both companies say "no way".
I may be able to find a used Motorola Photon slider cheaply enough to make it worth it. Or we may move her to a GSM carrier once her contract is up, and once again search high and low for a reasonably modern slider.
Basically, the concept of physical keyboards on phones is a Dodo at this point.