How-to: a physical keyboard for Huawei P8 Lite

Original post in Finnish HERE.

As you may have noticed, I am so tired of the fact that the phone models with a physical keyboard are non-existent. Well, now that we, the power users, just have to deal with it, I decided to make my own keyboard. It's not very expensive (about $25 currently) and I really recommend making this if you're that guy who likes to hear and feel the nice clicks. It's going to be a big, ugly monster if you ask a common slab user, but for us it's actually not bad, even though I'm the one saying this :D

I chose P8 Lite because it has the camera in the corner so that the cover doesn't block the view at all. I have a Samsung Galaxy S5, but the problem for that model is that the camera lens is in the middle so it's not a good option if you like to do photographing.

What you need:
- Dremel or similar small hobby drill
- glue
- a screwdriver

What you'll need to buy:
- an iPhone 6 keyboard cover - $19.62
- Huawei P8 Lite's cover x 2 - $5.50 total
(optional: keyboard stickers for your local layout, I use Scandinavian)


So let's begin. Tear the sticker off from the cover.

Remove the screws and then the phone holder part. In the image below the keyboard part is already fitted to the P8 Lite cover.

Now you can see that the cover is a wee bit taller than the keyboard part, so now it's time to use the Dremel to saw a few millimeter off.

Now fit the iPhone's holder part to the P8 Lite's holder part (not the one you just used the Dremel on) and drill holes to the same places that the iPhone's holder has. Also, remove the aluminium backplate from the P8 Lite's cover.

Clean the drilled holes a bit and modify them so that the screws sink in there nicely. If the screws you removed are too short, there are some longer screws in the keyboard part which you can take out and use. You probably will have to saw them a bit after.

Now take some glue and put a few drops of it in the lower P8 Lite cover.

Then you just fit the keyboard to the lower cover and there you go!

You can use this method for lots of other phones as well.

WhatsApp ending support for S60

It's a sad year. WhatsApp has announced that they will drop the support for marginal operating systems after 2016. Marginal OS's include S60, of course. I've been using WhatsApp on my Nokia E90 for a while now and while it's not fast, it functions well and there's nothing wrong with it.

Now I think it's time to move on... I decided to get myself a cover with a keyboard for my Samsung Galaxy S3. Actually two of them.

Image (c) dhgate.com

Image (c) tinydeal.com

And on top of that I also got myself A Motorola Droid 4 for just 60 €. We'll see how these gadgets manage to do the job in the hands of a long time Communicator user.

Image (c) Androidcentral.com

Too bad the Nordic keyboard layout is missing from all of today's devices, but I think I can draw Ä and Ö characters on the keyboard with a white marker.

BTW. Check out this FB page. It lists comments and yearnings about QWERTY phones.

https://www.facebook.com/qwertyless/

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:

http://www.concept-phones.com/nokia/nokia-lumia-960-tablet-runs-windows-rt-adopts-7-inch-display-nokia-e7-form-factor/

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.