OESF Portables Forum
Model Specific Forums => Gemini PDA => Gemini PDA - General Discussion => Topic started by: Pete G. on February 27, 2019, 03:24:02 pm
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Keyboards are proliferating!
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47364932 (https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47364932)
That looks rather bulkier that the Gemini -- and chicklet keys!
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Yes, I think the big advantage if Gemini having a physical keyboard is the Psion style keyboard feel which makes all the difference between a practical working device and what this FX thing looks like, just a grid of buttons.
Also it looks like an Android thing and I don't use Android.
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I'm glad to see any movement toward a pkb
Jake
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I hope that whenI'll have to replace my Gemini with a new device (hopefully after as many years of service as possible!), the market for devices with psysical keyboards will have grown in the meanwhile and we'll have more choices at affordable prices. Although I really hope for my next device to be a Planet one
Varti
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While I do enjoy GOOD chiclets, I'm a bit wary that such small buttons (I wouldn't really call them keys), while indeed useful (if they're any good) for brief text messages, may make people believe that pocketable devices can't have better keyboards than that. I think such misconceptions, once upon a time, promoted a thinking that mobile keyboards just couldn't justify their own bulk. Manufacturers, trying to "help", by making them smaller yet (remember, say, the Sony Ericsson P1i?), just made matters worse, which eventually led to the current pixel pecking products (which, by all means, have their uses). Let's hope that those yearning for better mobile typing, will find the few products that actually works, which then may inspire more such products.
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Yes, physical keyboards are a good thing, but a poor effort with awkward buttons could do damage to perceptions of physical keyboard pocketable devices and damage the market.
I obviously haven't tried this FX thing but from the photos it doesn't look too good.
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Until the Gemini, I thought the best pkb was on the Nokia E7. I limped along with its Symbian until I gave it up for a Blackberry Priv. The Priv's keyboard was physical, that's about the best you could say.
I realize the Gemini keyboard is hard to replicate in a true phone, but I don't know why hardware developers don't crib more from the E7's approach, which allowed for a pkb much better than a chicklet's.
Jake