I rocked a Samsung Alias 2 for 4 years before I got an iPhone 5. The e-ink keyboard was awesome how it changed when you flipped the screen open to portrait or landscape.
Bring back sliders with full keyboards
Being back T9. I could text with it in my pocket.
What duh the ib huwdb I j texted from my pitcher just fine.
If you didn’t text with a rotary phone you were a fucking noob: There, I said it.
T9 would work on a rotary phone input. You would save a lot of of time. It would still take a lot of time.
I really want one, I hate virtual keyboards so much. There’s the f(x)tec phones but their keyboards come out in landscape mode and I’d really rather have one where it’s portrait like the Palm Pre
I got one of them tiny foldable bluetooth keyboards for anything longer than replies. Brings it with me everywhere, it’s super handy.
Yet not as handy as a slide out keyboard.
Is f(x)tec actually a thing? Like have they actually started shipping phones to customers?
I never saw one where the keys were big enough that I didn’t mash everything around the target key with the size of my fingers, and I really don’t have big hands or anything.
The size of the keys are not really the issue, the size of the spacing around them is.
The BlackBerry Curve has my favorite keyboard, and I DO have big hands!
I had an HTC Tilt back when the first iPhone was released. Aside from that phone running windows mobile (holy Christ, what a mess that was), I loved it so much. But then I finally joined the cult at the 3GS.
Motorola DROID 4 was my dream phone. Alas, it was never released down here, so I could never buy one, even used.
or BlackBerry key approach
my first smart phone was a Motorola Droid that had a physical keyboard. Cameras have come a long way.
I miss those… ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ
motorola razr
I paid $400 for one of these brand new and it was ludicrous at the time. I thought it was super cool though.
So did I, and it was. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.
As a huge Formula 1 and Ferrari fan I had a Razr Maxx V6 Ferrari edition.
Best phone ever. I read through whole libraries on that little thing, and it looks so futuristic (as long as you don’t look at the 500 pixel screen or the 140p camera)
I still have my champagne Razr around here somewhere. It works, even looks pretty new.
Nokia 3310
This was mine, which I used from 2001 until 2011. I loved that phone
I adored that phone!! I still miss the interchangeable covers instead of adding a stupid case to the phone. I had a few cases I could swap depending on my outfit or the occasion. I wish new phones would adopt a similar idea instead of having to add an extra cover on top of the phone. I don’t need it to look good under the cover. Just make the outside looks nice.
I always thought this was such a cute phone
I always liked the color.
I would not call these on the picture “dumb phones” though.
I had a Motorola phone. I actually liked it because it had a really good camera. The native photo editor was also top notch at the time.
They were called “feature phones” at the time.
LG Env, I actually miss it.
I had the env2. Hands down, my favorite phone to date.
Oh ya I remember wanting that one a lot! I think it was too expensive for me at the time, so ended up with the alias 2 but I envied anyone who had one of those.
ENV2 gang. Great phone.
A Nokia 3100 … it was the first phone I bought, and I kept it through college and beyond.
The thing was a beast :-)
128x128 pixel screen, with 12-bit RGB. No WiFi, no Bluetooth. Had some web access with WAP (no not that! “Wireless Access Protocol”). It did have a camera module though /rofl
And best of all, the battery lasted a week!
Motorola Razr babyyyyy
I wish phones would go back to being unique. I want a slider with a physical keyboard (like the HTC EVO Shift). My Pixel 6 Pros battery is showing wear already but there’s nothing on the market I feel is worth switching to.
Just wish modern devices still had easily removable back covers without needing pry tools and hair dryers.
I loved the early galaxies and the zero lemon batteries. They were ridiculously cheap, so you could have like 3 charged at any time. Then if you ever got robbed you could just say “e-waste!” And toss a dead battery at your assailants eyes.
I had a pink Moto SLVR L7
I had the same model but in black. I still have it somewhere.
I had the Envy 2, the last phone I had with an actual physical keyboard.
It’s the one feature I miss the most. If I could have smartphone functionality with a physical keyboard I would be much happier.
I think about this all the time. I’ll give up being waterproof for a full-sized slide-out keyboard.
Does BlackBerry count as a dumb phone? I have a hard time calling it a smart phone.
I had this sick LG car phone and it made vroom vroom sounds. Used it for a decade and I still have it and it still works.
A Samsung slider. I remember watching the Matrix the first time, and when that phone popped open to reveal the keypad it was mind-blowing. Getting a slider phone a few years later was so satisfying.
The phone in the movie was a Nokia. I believe it was the 7910, if memory serves me correctly.
The spring loaded slide wasn’t really a thing. I think one version of the phone had it in the production release, but it was limited to a very small geographical area… I think somewhere in Asia? I forget.
Everywhere else had the phone to some extent, minus the spring loaded sliding action. You just had up push the cover down.
Source: my best friend had one. After… I think, 3? Years of owning it, he was so fed up with its dumb quirks that I think he snapped the slider thing off… Which had the mic in it, so he got a new phone right after that.
EDIT: I was mistaken, it was the Nokia 7110.
