I'm a Keyboard Dinosaur
The Titan is a victim of a low-budget, fast-time-to-market, MVP style approach.
The keyboard that had been intended its biggest selling point appears to be the weakest point instead. Long story short - Unihertz did not do enough research and did not go through enough prototypes and early adopter testing.
The keyboard is unusable.
And I'm not referring to the fact they declined to provide Polish language settings (long press a letter to get an accented variant of it). The keyboard is unusable even in its international US-English form. It seems nobody has ever tried doing some serious typing on it. Who on Earth came with the idea to place modifier keys on the top row? Has anyone even tried entering numbers (holding ALT with a right thumb and typing the numbers with keys UNDER that thumb....)? It had a potential to be a really great niche product. But it failed, being rushed out too fast.
With all that it seems I will continue sticking to my Blackberry... Until it dies - as it seems to be the last QWERTY phone standing.
The Blackberry keyboard (which of course is a product of years and years of experience and fine-tuning) is a day-and-night difference compared to the Titan. And frankly speaking, it is not the physicality of the keyboard that is so appealing to me. The appealing UX part is that the keyboard does not consume the display real estate. IOW, when typing, the application on the screen is exactly as it was when not typing (i.e., it is occupying the entire screen). This is subconscious and not entirely obvious at a first place, when considering a hardware keyboard. But it really does make a difference.
Having said that the Blackberry I've been using for several years now is ageing (Android 8) and sooner or later I will upgrade it to a newer device, which will very likely have no physical keyboard. The Blackberry has been the last ever.
To wipe away the tears, there is hope the new iPhone will come with a USB-C interface. Which may make it a reasonable choice going forward. Why iPhone - you may ask... The reason is Apple seems to continue prioritizing battery life. With the Blackberry I have been living without a power bank at all. Having a phone that lasts multiple days is still a unique experience.
Don't know why people are stuck with old ideas just because they work better in one scenario than others. I think the big modifier keys on top are a new, fresh idea and work much better for phones than trying to scram tiny ones on the sides or below letter rows. Sensible design, people.
ReplyDeleteAlso you're supposed to tap ALT and then press the number (or double tap ALT if you type multiple numbers), same for Shift.
Design wise the keyboard is much better than a Passport, which is a BlackBerry with similar dimensions, even when the keys don't feel as nice to press.
I've seen a lot of negativity from BlackBerry fans and people who want they phone keyboards to mimic desktop keyboards and it's sad, I've had the luck to test that phone and it dares to break the mold with mixed results sure, but mostly positive.
Good to hear it works for you, unfortunately it is absolutely unusable for me. Tried again two weeks ago and it went back to the box.
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