• AlternateRoute@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    These existed shortly after the iPhone came out under the presumption people would miss the physical keys from blackberries. They didn’t sell well back then I don’t think they will now.

    • Noerttipertti@sopuli.xyz
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      11 months ago

      Personally I wouldn’t mind having a phone with modern cababilities and Nokia Communicator / E7 type keyboard.

      • ExLisper@linux.community
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        11 months ago

        I still don’t understand why PDAs are no longer a thing. Make a phone a bit thicker, add ports, thumb keyboard… I remember being able to SSH to servers from my Zaurus and actually do things using the hardware keyboard. Or SSH to my n900 and install packages there. With android I just lost the interest. It doesn’t feel like a personal computer anymore.

        • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
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          11 months ago

          F(x)tec sold their phones with physical keyboards for the longest time. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to have a newer model and their company seems to have pivoted to “web3” so I’m pretty sure they’re no longer relevant.

          With how thin modern phones are, I bet you can make a keyboard case and still end up with a device thinner than the old PDA phones. They wouldn’t be very popular though so the price would probably be way too high to make sense.

    • SuiXi3D@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      Probably because they were all cheap crap and not made up to the standards of the device they connected to.