[axiolite]

It was around 2000, after buying a Cassiopeia E-100 that I realized a keyboard makes any computer massively more usable. With that I bought a Psion 5MX, used it great success, and never considered a device without a physical keyboard again. Switched off to Nokia Communicators, then several Android Sliders. All worked great. I was always the guy in the conference room who could login to servers and look-up info, despite everyone else having phones, too.

A (pocket-sized) bluetooth keyboard sounds fine in theory, but it's a hassle to keep it charged and to carry around a bulky extra device you'll only use occasionally. So it'll get left at home, not there when you need it, and nearly worthless.

It's only now, with every US carrier switching to VoLTE-only that I'll soon have to retire the old Android sliders and find a new option. Everything seems an unfortunate compromise. The keyboard on the Blackberry Keyone/Key2 isn't great, missing critically important keys like arrows and OK, and without being rootable, you can't remap them to make it usable. The form factor is... awkward as well.

The Gemini PDA is likely to be my next stop. Unfortunately the form factor is kind of anti-phone, making it a poor choice to quickly look at your screen to check some info, or make phone calls, and only good when you really need to do a lot of typing.

[andrepd]

It's a shame and a contradiction how the smartphone market has ballooned for the past few years yet choice is smaller and smaller.

How can it be that there are 100s of smartphone models out every year yet every single one has the same form factor? You cannot even get a phone smaller than the phablets of 6 or 7 years ago, let alone a phone with physical keys...

[lotsofpulp]

The technology is so complicated that costs in design/patents/royalties/manufacturing make it unfeasible to produce anything without economies of scale. Coupled with insufficient number of buyers willing to pay a lot, the potential profit margins are so low it simply is not worth the risk reward ratio.

[swiley]

NDAs, closed drivers, and other anti-competition tricks to keep innovation out.

[aftergibson]

Have you seen the Astro Slide? Name aside it does look pretty interesting. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/astro-slide-5g-transforme...

[afandian]

Before buying anything from Planet, see how well they have done at maintaining older devices. Latest release for Gemini PDA is Android 8.1, three years ago.

[tluyben2]

Is it not possible to put a newer Android on it yourself? Because you could run Linux on it as well?

[afandian]

I'm sure all things are possible. I just felt like it was indicitive of a feeling like they abandoned the device soon after launch to work on the next shiny thing.

[tluyben2]

Yeah true, I had that with the gdp pocket which I used a lot. I can replace and update the software (Linux in my case), but hardware support was dropped very fast. Since then I am a bit more careful. I like real open projects like the Pandora or the Pyra as hardware support is there for so long (more than a decade for the Pandora) that it keeps going with small replacements. However, those devices are just not as high spec or practical. Open source hardware and software but with great specs and formfactor are far away it seems.

[tluyben2]

Ah my previous planet device was stolen a few weeks after I received it. I hardly had a chance of using it.

The Slide looks more like a usable phone indeed. I never tried Linux on the previous one (which was my plan); with Linux I guess the 5g doesn't work? Anyone knows if wifi works with Linux on the Gemini or what works and what doesn't? For me to have a usable device, it would need to run Linux for somme things; I'm fine with Android for all phone user, but Linux with Wifi would be needed to do anything useful besides that.

If there would are (closed source) drivers for the 5g chip for Linux then this would be the 3rd new Linux phone on the market?

[IggleSniggle]

I have an alternate solution to propose to you that I used for a couple of years quite happily:

- Smart Watch for Voice/Text

- small Tablet with keyboard cover and LTE in your pocket for everything else

These days I have a different situation where I prefer not to have anything if I’m away from computer and I just use the Watch. I have the Apple Watch / AirPods which works quite well, but I know not everybody wants to commit to the Apple ecosystem. When I was doing the tablet-in-pocket thing, I was a bit more cross platform and it still worked great with Google Voice as the central hub for everything.

[phicoh]

My experience with some early Android sliders (HTC Dream and HTC Desire Z) is that the keyboards don't have all the keys I need. So in the end, typing the usual array of Unix and C graphics characters was a bit of a hassle.

For years now, I have used the Android "Hacker's Keyboard" on lots of ssh sessions.

Though I guess I would take a slider if it had a full (5 row) set of keys.

[axiolite]

> My experience with some early Android sliders (HTC Dream and HTC Desire Z) is that the keyboards don't have all the keys I need.

That's what the Sym button is for. Pop-up a menu on screen showing other, less-frequently used keys. Several apps included similar workarounds.

The LG F3Q did a good job with their keyboard, only omitting tab and pipe, but it was possible to remap keys to get those.

But then again, I'm from the dumb terminal days... I'm used to systems which are missing common keys, and using combos (e.g. Ctrl+i for tab) instead. Doing that on a physical keyboard was infinitely more productive than an on-screen keyboard, even Hacker Keyboard.

[Wildgoose]

I have a Gemini PDA and also an AstroSlide on order which should be shipping soon. I think it is exactly what you are looking for: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/astro-slide-5g-transforme...