perjantai 8. tammikuuta 2016

Physical QWERTY phones are wanted!

I just found the Concept-phones.com website which lists imaginary phones found all over the web from different people. Once I found the site, I browsed it enthusiastically, and one of the best devices there is Omar Piela's Lumia Communicator concept. The satellite phone function aside, it's a very nice concept. I went and praised the device on the website and on YouTube.

There's also an iPhone Communicator, which is also quite nice.

Also the Nokia E7 form factor has been an inspiration for at least one QWERTY phone:

Maybe the time for Communicators will come once again: it's clear that people still want them and there is a huge demand of such devices. A lot of business users and the majority of previous power users are fed up with the current devices. Check the comments section of this article, for example.

"I would gladly fork out a nice hunk of change for a high spec android cell with a brilliantly made QWERTY keyboard. As someone who travels frequently and has family and friends scattered all over the world, texting is by far, much cheaper than calling. Hence, I won't buy an android cell if it doesn't have a physical keyboard. Not only is is more accurate but I can type touch with a physical keyboard. This is very handy on the go."
"MAKE A HIGH QUALITY QWERTY KEYBOARD PHONE I'M TIRED OF FULL TOUCH SCREEN PHONES- LG G2 owner."
"With 9 out of the top selling 10 Android apps being games, it seems that those of us who want to use our phones as tools for increasing our efficiency are a minority. Most people use their phones as time wasting devices optimized for playing "irate poultry" and upload pictures of high school drunks to Instagram.
I suspect that's the reason for the lack of qwerty-phones."
The bolded part is the problem. Manufacturers don't care about the power users any more. Phones are made for the masses, the irate poultry that doesn't do anything useful with their phones.

There is no company that makes quality phones for power users any more. It's a sad fact, but hopefully it will change one day.

Blackberry makes QWERTY devices, but the keyboards are ridiculously small and cumbersome to use. Why can't they make a full QWERTY clamshell like the old Nokia 9500, for example?

Meanwhile, all we can do is to keep on believing and use our old QWERTY phones. I'm currently using Nokia E90. It's a nice device, although S60 isn't as good as the old S80. My current dream would be Nokia E90's form factor, and inside there would be Ubuntu Mobile or Android. Like this.

Ubuntu on a Nokia E90 Communicator. That would be nice.