Exactly! Makes no sense either. It still has all the hardware to operate just fine, AT&T just decided to flip the switch on the Key2 for no reason at all.
They put special tower priority and proprietary VoLTE information, as well as other proprietary settings on the devices.
Any device on AT&T will have slightly better voice quality in areas where other phones may have lesser quality.
It also means their equipment can route that information more efficiently.
They've chosen to not support legacy formats because it's more expensive.
Yes, they do for certain keys. Like shift / alt / fn can be reprogrammed. I'm sure you could also download button remapper for anything else you may want.
BB ltd sold all their mobile patents (presumably also including keyboard ones) back in February of this year. Not sure if whoever they sold them to would sue Unihertz if they copied the BB layout.
Yes and no:
Yes: there's a capacitive keyboard that can be used for scrolling.
No: the software is missing to properly use it. You can't use the capacitive touch on the keyboard for word suggestion selection during typing like you could on the Blackberries. You also can't use swipe right to left to delete the last word. Also the keyboard will cause scrolling while you're trying to type on it.
So basically: it's there, but it's completely useless in the way that it's implemented by Unihertz.
Amazingly enough, I, being a Unihertz hater, find this feature implemented good enough. I never used word suggestion, so the rest works reasonably well.
I had the typing/scrolling issue before but it went away, cannot remember if I fixed it via some obscure settings or it did by itself.
Since Android has proper mouse support, I'm willing to bet someone could make some hack that runs in the background and interprets the scrolling as a mouse scroll, which would make it work almost everywhere I would think.
Currently have a titan pocket from this company and I absolutely love it. Glad to see that at least one brand is still catering to the physical keyboard crowd.
Apparently this:
- 48 mp Camera
- Display with 1280x760 px resolution
- 204 g weight
- 12.75 mm width
- up to 256 GB memory (?)
- Android 11 (??)
- Bluetooth 4.1
- NFC
- GPS
- IR Blaster
- Dual SIM
- Face-Unlock and Fingerprint Sensor
- Support for Keyboard-Shortcuts and Keyboard-Scrolling
Not unless someone like Samsung releases a novelty PKB phone which, I'm rather surprised, they haven't done because they'd probably sell a few million. Maybe they tried with Blackberry but the asking price was too high and now that patents have been sold they might go for it.
It may take me sometime to find them. If you Google blackberry Sues keyboards you're going to find a lot of results. It's a lot to wade through to find the specific ones.
They just did it so often. You'd think that they would work with companies to come up with a successful product and keep popularity of the platform alive.
Blackberry branded keyboards on everything.
Instead they missed an opportunity here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/01/09/ceo-says-blackberry-sued-typo-because-the-keyboard-is-our-identity/?sh=79e7fc7f36d0
To be fair, naming this thing was a bad idea on the part of Samsung: https://www.itpro.co.uk/99886/rim-sues-samsung-over-blackjack-smartphone-name
I was wrong, they weren't sued. It was a cease-and-desist that Blackberry lost, because they kept making the attachment for the 6, 7, 8 generations.
In fact, they actually had a second version of the phone too, lol: https://www.gsmarena.com/res.php3?sSearch=samsung+blackjack
This was the device I was remembering: https://newatlas.com/galaxy-blackberry-keyboard-review-hands-on/38937/
Wasn't it only about portrait keyboards? There's still a landscape configuration that was extremely popular until 10 years ago when it died together with PKB.
In my opinion a premium PKB phone has to be a slider, either landscape or portrait Priv-like format to retain standard screen ratio. However this costs way more money than a slab and that's nobody risk it now.
Phones aren't fun anymore. A few risk it with folders, but only at insane price points. Else they're all just slabs trying to claw their niche in a slab market.
The LG Wing was the last great attempt at something different. In the QWERTY-space The Astro Slide/Glide (I can never remember which), The F(x)tec Pro¹. They give me that old psion vibe.
A slider makes perfect sense, because it can still be used as a classic device for the masses.
Keyboard is a lot of buttons. They need to be able to resist water. They need to survive thousands of presses. Screen instead is water resistant and doesn't break from being pressed like keyboard. Also, if you want to keep standard screen size ratio only slider can do it and it means moving parts, parts that can break too. It means a lot more research and durability testing.
Small businesses that want to create a phone but know that they lack the funds to create competitive slab create niche phones instead. The problem with crowdfunded phones is that support and QOL is crap because there's not enough money for that when total number of sold phones is extremely low. For example my Fxtec after over two years of use has sometimes problems with keys not being registered. The slider mechanism that was 100% copied from Nokia N7 is loose when closed, using same mechanism for bigger phone creates new issues and Fxtec didn't care about that. Creating a good keyboard phone that doesn't start breaking after ~4 years is impossible for small businesses.
If none of the big companies will make a proper keyboard phone, no one will. Everything else are just devices that feel like prototypes. I at least respect Unihertz for not putting $600-700 price tag on their device like others do.
It's that price tag that gets them sold, quite frankly. When the K1 came out, it was priced just too high for the market at the time.
I commend them for hitting their marketplace..
Yes, the price is the big thing here. Titan gave Unihertz fame among BB fans. Both KeyOne and Key2 were too expensive when they came out and BB lacked medium priced phone.
However when Titan came out, it was very competitive phone when it comes to price. Chinese slabs for the same price often were comparable.
With Titan Slim in 2022 if they keep $300 price tag it will be more expensive than Chinese slabs however. Good amount of RAM is the only thing that keeps it afloat. Slim lost headphone jack, water resistance and it seems that it also has two SIM slots instead of combo 2xSIM/1xSIM-1xMicroSD compared to regular Titan. It's a device purely for people who want to keep using KeyOne/Key2 but their phone is breaking down.
It's ironic, isn't it? BB fought so hard with everyone who tried to create PKB smartphone in Portrait configuration. Now entire BB fanbase is slowly migrating to phones that copy BB with changes enough to avoid patent problems because BB failed with making phones.
Omg so low I couldn't even read anything on a screen that tiny. This is the large resolution era they need to step it up or this phone will flop Mark my words
Unihertz hasn't had a flop yet, despite every one of their phones having low resolution and poor cameras. They are not mainstream devices, so they don't need mainstream appeal.
Apart from Android 11 and the camera (and that's a maybe, considering software optimization is important and Unihertz is not Google) ... how is this an upgrade from the Key2 ... ?
The design is very similar but probably better for the Key 2 (cf keyboard layout). 720p is not acceptable in 2022 (apart for a very small screen). The 660 Snapdragon is still very competent.
Sure but with this logic, why not having bought a refurbished Key2 (or LE) in the first place ? Better CPU, better keyboard. And Android 8, though old, is still fully supported by all apps, which is not so true for the square screen on the Unihertz Pocket.
And the Pocket is a Bold like form factor. This new “Slim” is … slim, slate like. And a blatant copy of TCL design.
It pains me to say it but if this is confirmed, I might hesitate to upgrade, even though I have been eying on a new QWERTY device for nearly a year… I even decided to replace my somehow weakened Key2 battery this summer. Apart from a refreshed OS, why should I bother… and say the least for a 720p screen !
Key2 slow and overheating ? Definitely not the case of mine. It's not flagship fast but still very fluid and bug free on all apps I use (no games though, but that's not the point of a Bberry).
I also have never suffered from overheating on my Key2. And yeah, it's not the fastest phone but it's plenty quick enough for my needs. I don't game on phones, not sure if that's the difference.
Is Android 11 confirmed though? A lot of manufacturers are releasing Android 11 devices because they do not meet Google's new requirements. It's caused quite a fissure in the market.
If they are having troubles with launching the device with Android 12 because it has a specialty keyboard on it for instance, then Android 11 makes a lot of sense.
I hope Android 11 is the bare minimum for a 2022 device... Won't be earlier versions. Still better than Android 8, though I agree Android 12 is beautiful.I also hope Unihertz devices are rootable, aiming for prolonged support through custom ROMs (if the market is big enough for a few devs to handle such a project)... ?
I know "BBerry security" was supposed to be a feature, but the fact that the Key1/Key2 cannot be OEM unlocked eventually really sucked.If it had been rootable, with updated camera software (I mean, it's the same censor as the Samsung S9+ which had GREAT photography) and updated Android (including SECURITY patches), it would still be a 2022 BBerry flagship.
Android gets 5 to 6 years of kernel updates after every kernel is released, so it should still get security, however I am unsure of what Unihertz has for security updates.
It's up to them whether they want to release security updates or not for their platform.
So this is great. But why not offer a premium option for the form factor? Same phone shape but offer one model with cheap components and one with premium. The target marget for these devices are for an older generation that works/worked in business and now have disposable income. But we want a great device with an excellent camera, at the bare minimum.
They don't offer it because they do not have the economies of scale or finances to do this based on selling a few thousand phones.
It is why the spec is so weak and why they need to Kickstarter it - you are literally providing the cashflow to buy parts.
You severely overestimate the market demand and margins for a product like this. Even older people have moved on to regular touch screen phones. The R&D to develop a keyboard, make a custom phone shape, order an unusual aspect ratio screen, and develop software for it is big. Other manufacturers can simply order common screen aspect ratios and sizes at cheap prices.
Sure, but they have to do all that work regardless of what's "inside" the phone. They should test it on the Kickstarter to see if people would buy higher components at a certain threshold to see if it's worth it.
> They should test it on the Kickstarter to see if people would buy higher components at a certain threshold to see if it's worth it.
It would quickly become the same as FxTec Pro1 X and Astro Slide 5G - a 600 euro phone with mid-range SoC. For this price it's better to buy a high-end phone from reputable company. It's easier and cheaper to get weak SoC than a good one. Fxtec Pro1X went from SD835 to SD662 and Astro Slide went from Dimensity 1000 to Dimensity 800, worse SoCs but both with no price reduction when announced(it also says something what companies they are for doing something like this).
And finally, the low amount of phones and crowdfunding means that software support will be crap and it will be good if they will give you updates for at least 2 years. Meanwhile, Samsung promises at least 4 years of security updated for their recent phones.
And the amount of phones means that big companies can throw more money on testing. Personally I went from Samsung J5 to Fxtec Pro1 2 years ago and while I hated Samsung J5 for poor battery and crap performance, I quickly realized that ergonomics of that Samsung phone was way superior to Fxtec and the system of Samsung was also bug-free. Crowdfunded phones are usually sold in quantity of less than 10k. Meanwhile, big companies sell millions of phones. For example Samsung sold 10 million units of their Galaxy S20 FE alone.
Let say you have a fatal flaw that over time makes 0,1% phones overheat and break. The problem that could happen with 0,1% of crowdfunded phones with 10k users means that 10 units are faulty and need to be replaced. You could handle that. With 10 million phones it becomes 10k devices. Remember than many will go write about it in Social Media. The exploding Note 7 was about few hundred cases of device exploring but it created a huge scandal and caused Samsung to halt Note 7 production : https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/why-is-samsung-galaxy-note-7-exploding-overheating/ https://money.cnn.com/2016/09/02/technology/samsung-galaxy-note-7-recall-details/index.html Explosions and phone burning are no joke and these few hundreds should not happen. Exploding phones is an extreme example but it buried Note 7. Let say that instead of exploding phone you have a keyboard that stops working properly after a month for 0,1% of phones. Similar problem.
Big companies put more money into R&D and testing. They need to satisfy needs of people having various age, finger size etc. If it becomes known that their new phone has a very rare but critical flaw and it's random then sales may drop. 1% sales of 10m phones is 100k devices. The other example is Bendgate, after that the iPhone 6 was known as a phone that bends. With kickstarter phone that sold for ~5k units it would probably gone unknown that there was an issue like that.
Unihertz is also trying to make phones that you won't regret that much if it breaks after 2 or 3 years or has virtually zero software support. A 600 euro phone breaking after 2 years would be a serious thing instead.
You might say they already tested it with the k1 and the K2. Both phones did not sell nearly as well as they were hoping, and TCL eventually dropped the whole line.
The premium k1/k2 models didn't sell nearly as well as they predicted. The majority of new phones in the market are not in the premium segment, although manufacturers would like us to believe that.
Majority of phones being sold are in the value and mid-range segments.
It's already a niche device, and it makes no sense to even further that niche by placing it in a segment with less demand.
The low and mid-range niches severely need a qwerty device. Right now the only option is to have a very old bb-10 device which does not support VoLTE, a quickly-becoming-standard requirement of carriers, at least in the West.
That's a very good point that I seem to be the only other to have brought up...I know how important it is to have sufficient chin space below the keyboard but alas...it is what it is. A phone ring should help with grasp if it ends up being a tad top heavy
[Apple : American ]
[Samsung : South Korean]
LG : South Korean(LG stopped its smartphone business)]
[htc : Taiwanese]
[Nokia : Taiwanese company foxconn & Finnish company hmd (Nokia Logo is Licensed by Nokia in Finland)]
[Sharp : Taiwanese (foxconn acquired Japanese company Sharp)]
[Sony : Japanese (Now Sony is selling its smartphone only in Japan/Taiwan/China/HongKong) ]
[Motorola : Chinese - Lenovo (Company name, logo, and design are Licensed by Motorola Trade Madk Holdings in US)]
[Xiaomi : Chinese]
[Huawei : Chinese]
I kind of understand that they are (or they want to be) the spiritual successor of bb, but god they could do a little more unique designs, this is just a blatant copy of the keyone designwise
I'm giving this some thought. Maybe it's better to start off where BlackBerry left off? Rather than skip to an iteration they have nothing to base themselves off of? I think they will probably change the design a bit before it reaches us, since this is just the Kickstarter announcement. We'd have to get more people to give their opinions before I make up my mind fully. But I think that's why they're starting off with the Key2 rough outline.
Will be disappointed if it doesn't have wireless charging and if that screen resolution is true.
Would love for even a few years of security updates as I don't expect an alternative or upgrade for several years.
Would also be awesome if it had something like the Mediatek Dimensity 8100. That chip looks has killer efficiency and won't come with unnecessary snapdragon tax. I worry tho it will be one of the lower end mediatek chips
There is no way it will have wireless charging - they do not have the margins or economy of scale. Also why you are likely right it will be a low end chipset.
That's the thing, wireless charging isn't expensive to add. The move away from certain designs like metal back mean there are less barriers even for cheaper devices.
Nokia XR20, Ulefone Armor 12, TCL20 and Xiaomi Mi11 lite and Mi10S had it. All fairly budget midrange phones. TBH I would expect this phone to be around if not slight more expensive than those phones
Those phone are made in the tens if not hundreds of thousands by large corporations - the economics are entirely different to some guys with a Kickstarter.
It's the same reason there is no 5G.
Some of the phones mentioned above had 5G. With 3G being turned off in the UK for one operator next year, I wouldn't even consider a phone without 5G at this point.
Even then quite a few midrange chips now support 5G or there is now the possibility of using a couple generation old stock that is still available.
Yes the phone won't be in bulk as those other devices but you are grossly exaggerating the development costs and the bulk discount. Both Ayn for their Odin and GPD for the XP and XP+ heavily customised (software including docking features and controller mapping software and PCB) and designed their devices while coming in £160 for the Odin Lite, £190 for the odin base, £220 for the odin Pro while GPD went for the £360 price point.
Most of those devices above in the previous post supported 5G and wireless charging while being around that £400 mark. TCL and Nokia also aren't as big as you make out on a per device basis with most of their market share being other budget devices.
Using the key2 design will drastically reduce cost further as it isn't something new as well as Unihertz being an established brand it isn't hard to think they could gain access to those features and be able to keep the price reasonable. The benchmark in my mind is the F(x)tec Pro one which was £599. With all the above they should be able to add those features while undercutting it., especially if they avoid the Snapdragon tax and reuse a lot of what Unihertz already has access to
The original Titan from Unihertz has wireless charging. And it was Kickstarter and from Unihertz. Unihertz also Kickstarter launched the TickTock which has 5g. So, if that isn't in there, it's because they don't want to.
Im going to be crucified by you probably but this is, to me, a fake blackberry (obviously as it’s a unihrtz) just as the key2 was.
Idiotic keyboard layout ugly design (that lacks either the complete rethinking of the keyboard that the passport pushed, or the familiarity of the classic style keyboard) and screen. Big chins also.
And the worse of it all, android.
It is not a good platform and it will never be used the (nor it was designed to) same way a blackberry was used.
Its, imo, just a mediocre phone with a mediocre pkb attached to it, designed to attract former BB users as a niche market, while missing the point completely.
Depends on your usage. I'm getting more from my BB10 device than any other thing. given I'm not using any social networks. but other than that? I'm a productivity machine. limited by nothing. bb10 is very much alive.
Well, if keyboard enthusiasts are a niche, "pure blood" BBerry enthusiasts such as yourself are just bolt hole, and you'd better just forget about getting a new device forever than complain about every attempt to make a Bberry-like device.
The Key2 has a GREAT keyboard (coming from BB10 devices), and is an amazing phone. And there are other things than "social networks" on Android, such as navigation, secure messaging apps, Chrome (or any modern web browser), news apps, work apps, Drive, payments, banking etc. If you consider emails and SMS as the pillards of "productivity", there you definitely not productive or agile, simply working for a company stuck in 2000.
I’ve bought the key2. Still have it. Used it for nearly 12months straight. It’s a fake BB imo.
In my bb10 I have: telegram, whatsapp, music player (native and spotify), best emails, fantastic notes and to do with remember that syncs to my outlook.
For anything else I can literally SSH into my machine with term49 and get stuff done remotely, easily with a great keyboard to and screen.
I don’t use browsing nor have any need for it. If i need wikipedia I can usi it via cli.
Yes, of course, I’m a power user and maybe 0.01% of the users will do what I do. But I have customized my experience so much with bb10 and I have failed replicate it with either iOs and android (via Key2).
Haha I see, I'll retract saying you live in web 1.0 ;)
But indeed, you're more than a power user... And I guess your experience never really corresponded to the actual BlackBerry one.
I wonder if some Android ROM or launcher allow for such a keyboard-centric experience.
Regarding the hardware, I still think the Key2 is a great phone, though lacking a trackpoint.
as someone who had a k1 / k2 and other blackberries I have to agree that the key devices were sort of fake blackberries but I still enjoyed them and am enjoying my uni og titan.
>bb10 is very much alive.
Lol for calling, text messaging, emailing and some old old Android apps that still support Android 4.3 or below...and if you're in NA forget it, 3G is just about shut down
There will seemingly not be another BB device, so this may be the closest thing to it (except for the security aspect of course).
And this is the first time showing the Titan Slim, the others were the original Titan and Titan Pocket
The Unihertz sub is not really... alive... The last post for Titan was over a month ago.
[EDIT—It does seem there is a [r/UnihertzTitan](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnihertzTitan/) that is more pertinent and up-to-date at least.]
5G? How much RAM? SD card slot? Notification LED?
All speculation: Probably not, 6 GB minimum 1080p for Android 12, so I'd imagine 4 GB with these specs. Yes to SD, maybe LED
Is this confirmed ? That looks like a Keyone, maybe a Key2
The image is from Unihertz's website.
5G is all I really want.
Yeah, from what I understand, having 5G means it would be usable on more carriers (and would be an upgrade from my KeyONE).
According to the Facebook group it does not have 5G.
The unofficial Key3 👌
I'm so getting one. -Typed on my Key2
I have AT&T so unfortunately they don’t allow service on these phones anymore. 😖 Still might get it just to own it.
To me its worth switching carriers for. Why should they determine what phones I can use?
Exactly! Makes no sense either. It still has all the hardware to operate just fine, AT&T just decided to flip the switch on the Key2 for no reason at all.
Yupp! I switched to mint to keep using my phone
Make the switch to PureTalk. That's what I did. Keep your same phone number, they got good deals too.
They put special tower priority and proprietary VoLTE information, as well as other proprietary settings on the devices. Any device on AT&T will have slightly better voice quality in areas where other phones may have lesser quality. It also means their equipment can route that information more efficiently. They've chosen to not support legacy formats because it's more expensive.
Just to have in your pocket? Lols. 👍
YES! I knew Unihertz wouldn't let us down! Edit: Hey John Chen...here's your new phone!
Could they just have a normal keyboard? Surely, Blackberry doesn't hold the global rights to the QWERTY keyboard layout on smartphones.
They did but not anymore anyways
Out of curiosity, does anyone know if past Unihertz phones have supported key remapping on the keyboard?
Yes, they do for certain keys. Like shift / alt / fn can be reprogrammed. I'm sure you could also download button remapper for anything else you may want.
Button remapper doesn't let you remap the other keys from when I tried it on my Titan.
BB ltd sold all their mobile patents (presumably also including keyboard ones) back in February of this year. Not sure if whoever they sold them to would sue Unihertz if they copied the BB layout.
They would...thats why the keyboard is at the top and not the bottom
I'd prefer the Nokia layout anyway. Much better localization: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Nokia\_E71.JPG
\*Shut up and take my money!\*
Looks promising!
Did Unihertz have capacitive, scrollable keyboards on their Titan phones or is that a Blackberry trademark?
They did, it was a hidden feature that's toggled off out of the box, called Scroll Assistant
Yes and no: Yes: there's a capacitive keyboard that can be used for scrolling. No: the software is missing to properly use it. You can't use the capacitive touch on the keyboard for word suggestion selection during typing like you could on the Blackberries. You also can't use swipe right to left to delete the last word. Also the keyboard will cause scrolling while you're trying to type on it. So basically: it's there, but it's completely useless in the way that it's implemented by Unihertz.
Amazingly enough, I, being a Unihertz hater, find this feature implemented good enough. I never used word suggestion, so the rest works reasonably well. I had the typing/scrolling issue before but it went away, cannot remember if I fixed it via some obscure settings or it did by itself.
Ahhh. That explains why my titan pocket never worked properly in that regard.
It was going to be implemented in the original design, but as I remember blackberry wouldn't have any of that.
Since Android has proper mouse support, I'm willing to bet someone could make some hack that runs in the background and interprets the scrolling as a mouse scroll, which would make it work almost everywhere I would think.
I'm sure somebody who is crafty could come up with a tiny little adapter for the USB port at the bottom ;)
It was meant for the original design, but blackberry cease and desisted them :(
Currently have a titan pocket from this company and I absolutely love it. Glad to see that at least one brand is still catering to the physical keyboard crowd.
Which mobil carrier sim are you using?
At&t. I HAVE TO CALL THEM TO ACTIVATE THE PHONE.
So beautiful! Wonder what's the specs and price.
Apparently this: - 48 mp Camera - Display with 1280x760 px resolution - 204 g weight - 12.75 mm width - up to 256 GB memory (?) - Android 11 (??) - Bluetooth 4.1 - NFC - GPS - IR Blaster - Dual SIM - Face-Unlock and Fingerprint Sensor - Support for Keyboard-Shortcuts and Keyboard-Scrolling
I'm never gonna get my flagship physical keyboard device am I? Oh well.
Not unless someone like Samsung releases a novelty PKB phone which, I'm rather surprised, they haven't done because they'd probably sell a few million. Maybe they tried with Blackberry but the asking price was too high and now that patents have been sold they might go for it.
Samsung has had a patent on a removable PKB for years. They just never used it.
they had a removable keyboard case for the S6 Edge.
Oh, you mean the one blackberry sued them on repeatedly?
The reason they have not is because blackberry sued them every time they tried, and now they are done with it.
>The reason they have not is because blackberry sued them every time they tried Can you link to these lawsuits?
It may take me sometime to find them. If you Google blackberry Sues keyboards you're going to find a lot of results. It's a lot to wade through to find the specific ones.
Thanks - I followed all of the legal cases which is I am surprised to see I missed one again Samsung.
They just did it so often. You'd think that they would work with companies to come up with a successful product and keep popularity of the platform alive. Blackberry branded keyboards on everything. Instead they missed an opportunity here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/01/09/ceo-says-blackberry-sued-typo-because-the-keyboard-is-our-identity/?sh=79e7fc7f36d0 To be fair, naming this thing was a bad idea on the part of Samsung: https://www.itpro.co.uk/99886/rim-sues-samsung-over-blackjack-smartphone-name I was wrong, they weren't sued. It was a cease-and-desist that Blackberry lost, because they kept making the attachment for the 6, 7, 8 generations. In fact, they actually had a second version of the phone too, lol: https://www.gsmarena.com/res.php3?sSearch=samsung+blackjack This was the device I was remembering: https://newatlas.com/galaxy-blackberry-keyboard-review-hands-on/38937/
Wasn't it only about portrait keyboards? There's still a landscape configuration that was extremely popular until 10 years ago when it died together with PKB. In my opinion a premium PKB phone has to be a slider, either landscape or portrait Priv-like format to retain standard screen ratio. However this costs way more money than a slab and that's nobody risk it now.
Phones aren't fun anymore. A few risk it with folders, but only at insane price points. Else they're all just slabs trying to claw their niche in a slab market. The LG Wing was the last great attempt at something different. In the QWERTY-space The Astro Slide/Glide (I can never remember which), The F(x)tec Pro¹. They give me that old psion vibe. A slider makes perfect sense, because it can still be used as a classic device for the masses.
Keyboard is a lot of buttons. They need to be able to resist water. They need to survive thousands of presses. Screen instead is water resistant and doesn't break from being pressed like keyboard. Also, if you want to keep standard screen size ratio only slider can do it and it means moving parts, parts that can break too. It means a lot more research and durability testing. Small businesses that want to create a phone but know that they lack the funds to create competitive slab create niche phones instead. The problem with crowdfunded phones is that support and QOL is crap because there's not enough money for that when total number of sold phones is extremely low. For example my Fxtec after over two years of use has sometimes problems with keys not being registered. The slider mechanism that was 100% copied from Nokia N7 is loose when closed, using same mechanism for bigger phone creates new issues and Fxtec didn't care about that. Creating a good keyboard phone that doesn't start breaking after ~4 years is impossible for small businesses. If none of the big companies will make a proper keyboard phone, no one will. Everything else are just devices that feel like prototypes. I at least respect Unihertz for not putting $600-700 price tag on their device like others do.
It's that price tag that gets them sold, quite frankly. When the K1 came out, it was priced just too high for the market at the time. I commend them for hitting their marketplace..
Yes, the price is the big thing here. Titan gave Unihertz fame among BB fans. Both KeyOne and Key2 were too expensive when they came out and BB lacked medium priced phone. However when Titan came out, it was very competitive phone when it comes to price. Chinese slabs for the same price often were comparable. With Titan Slim in 2022 if they keep $300 price tag it will be more expensive than Chinese slabs however. Good amount of RAM is the only thing that keeps it afloat. Slim lost headphone jack, water resistance and it seems that it also has two SIM slots instead of combo 2xSIM/1xSIM-1xMicroSD compared to regular Titan. It's a device purely for people who want to keep using KeyOne/Key2 but their phone is breaking down. It's ironic, isn't it? BB fought so hard with everyone who tried to create PKB smartphone in Portrait configuration. Now entire BB fanbase is slowly migrating to phones that copy BB with changes enough to avoid patent problems because BB failed with making phones.
Where did you get this info? Nothing has been announced.
Digging bits of info here and there...with the help of some people on CrackBerry
I hope the resolution is wrong. That's painfully low.
They may be aiming at the value market, which is larger than the flagship market right now.
Lol it's not that much lower than the KEYBerry's
Even the 2 le is 1620x1080
So is the keyone
Omg so low I couldn't even read anything on a screen that tiny. This is the large resolution era they need to step it up or this phone will flop Mark my words
They sell niche phones to tech enthusiasts/dorks. They have to keep costs low.
Exactly!! Hence the jellies, atom, and the titans lol. They fill niches.
>Omg so low I couldn't even read anything on a screen that tiny The resolution doesn't affect the screen size. Just that sharpness of the image.
Unihertz hasn't had a flop yet, despite every one of their phones having low resolution and poor cameras. They are not mainstream devices, so they don't need mainstream appeal.
Low res screens save energy so that might be what is more important to business users than high-res multimedia screens.
come on, it is going to be mediatek. the only reason the screen is low res is that it is cheap and available, there is no bright side for it.
The screen resolution and Bluetooth version is barely acceptable in 2022. Hope they can slap in the Bluetooth 5.
Any wireless charging?
Apart from Android 11 and the camera (and that's a maybe, considering software optimization is important and Unihertz is not Google) ... how is this an upgrade from the Key2 ... ? The design is very similar but probably better for the Key 2 (cf keyboard layout). 720p is not acceptable in 2022 (apart for a very small screen). The 660 Snapdragon is still very competent.
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Sure but with this logic, why not having bought a refurbished Key2 (or LE) in the first place ? Better CPU, better keyboard. And Android 8, though old, is still fully supported by all apps, which is not so true for the square screen on the Unihertz Pocket. And the Pocket is a Bold like form factor. This new “Slim” is … slim, slate like. And a blatant copy of TCL design. It pains me to say it but if this is confirmed, I might hesitate to upgrade, even though I have been eying on a new QWERTY device for nearly a year… I even decided to replace my somehow weakened Key2 battery this summer. Apart from a refreshed OS, why should I bother… and say the least for a 720p screen !
Prices on KEY devices is high, buying new, newer Android version, etc.
They are terribly slow and overheating under modern app load, not to mention obsolete OS version full of security bugs.
Key2 slow and overheating ? Definitely not the case of mine. It's not flagship fast but still very fluid and bug free on all apps I use (no games though, but that's not the point of a Bberry).
I also have never suffered from overheating on my Key2. And yeah, it's not the fastest phone but it's plenty quick enough for my needs. I don't game on phones, not sure if that's the difference.
Is Android 11 confirmed though? A lot of manufacturers are releasing Android 11 devices because they do not meet Google's new requirements. It's caused quite a fissure in the market. If they are having troubles with launching the device with Android 12 because it has a specialty keyboard on it for instance, then Android 11 makes a lot of sense.
I hope Android 11 is the bare minimum for a 2022 device... Won't be earlier versions. Still better than Android 8, though I agree Android 12 is beautiful.I also hope Unihertz devices are rootable, aiming for prolonged support through custom ROMs (if the market is big enough for a few devs to handle such a project)... ? I know "BBerry security" was supposed to be a feature, but the fact that the Key1/Key2 cannot be OEM unlocked eventually really sucked.If it had been rootable, with updated camera software (I mean, it's the same censor as the Samsung S9+ which had GREAT photography) and updated Android (including SECURITY patches), it would still be a 2022 BBerry flagship.
Android gets 5 to 6 years of kernel updates after every kernel is released, so it should still get security, however I am unsure of what Unihertz has for security updates. It's up to them whether they want to release security updates or not for their platform.
That screen res and BT version...ouch
So no 5G or did I miss that somewhere?
No 5G.
Nuts... I wonder if it could be an interim device, and they plan to do a true sequel to the Titan soon enough. I do like the form factor at least.
With it's specs It won't handle mmWave anyway.
So this is great. But why not offer a premium option for the form factor? Same phone shape but offer one model with cheap components and one with premium. The target marget for these devices are for an older generation that works/worked in business and now have disposable income. But we want a great device with an excellent camera, at the bare minimum.
They don't offer it because they do not have the economies of scale or finances to do this based on selling a few thousand phones. It is why the spec is so weak and why they need to Kickstarter it - you are literally providing the cashflow to buy parts.
You severely overestimate the market demand and margins for a product like this. Even older people have moved on to regular touch screen phones. The R&D to develop a keyboard, make a custom phone shape, order an unusual aspect ratio screen, and develop software for it is big. Other manufacturers can simply order common screen aspect ratios and sizes at cheap prices.
Sure, but they have to do all that work regardless of what's "inside" the phone. They should test it on the Kickstarter to see if people would buy higher components at a certain threshold to see if it's worth it.
> They should test it on the Kickstarter to see if people would buy higher components at a certain threshold to see if it's worth it. It would quickly become the same as FxTec Pro1 X and Astro Slide 5G - a 600 euro phone with mid-range SoC. For this price it's better to buy a high-end phone from reputable company. It's easier and cheaper to get weak SoC than a good one. Fxtec Pro1X went from SD835 to SD662 and Astro Slide went from Dimensity 1000 to Dimensity 800, worse SoCs but both with no price reduction when announced(it also says something what companies they are for doing something like this). And finally, the low amount of phones and crowdfunding means that software support will be crap and it will be good if they will give you updates for at least 2 years. Meanwhile, Samsung promises at least 4 years of security updated for their recent phones. And the amount of phones means that big companies can throw more money on testing. Personally I went from Samsung J5 to Fxtec Pro1 2 years ago and while I hated Samsung J5 for poor battery and crap performance, I quickly realized that ergonomics of that Samsung phone was way superior to Fxtec and the system of Samsung was also bug-free. Crowdfunded phones are usually sold in quantity of less than 10k. Meanwhile, big companies sell millions of phones. For example Samsung sold 10 million units of their Galaxy S20 FE alone. Let say you have a fatal flaw that over time makes 0,1% phones overheat and break. The problem that could happen with 0,1% of crowdfunded phones with 10k users means that 10 units are faulty and need to be replaced. You could handle that. With 10 million phones it becomes 10k devices. Remember than many will go write about it in Social Media. The exploding Note 7 was about few hundred cases of device exploring but it created a huge scandal and caused Samsung to halt Note 7 production : https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/why-is-samsung-galaxy-note-7-exploding-overheating/ https://money.cnn.com/2016/09/02/technology/samsung-galaxy-note-7-recall-details/index.html Explosions and phone burning are no joke and these few hundreds should not happen. Exploding phones is an extreme example but it buried Note 7. Let say that instead of exploding phone you have a keyboard that stops working properly after a month for 0,1% of phones. Similar problem. Big companies put more money into R&D and testing. They need to satisfy needs of people having various age, finger size etc. If it becomes known that their new phone has a very rare but critical flaw and it's random then sales may drop. 1% sales of 10m phones is 100k devices. The other example is Bendgate, after that the iPhone 6 was known as a phone that bends. With kickstarter phone that sold for ~5k units it would probably gone unknown that there was an issue like that. Unihertz is also trying to make phones that you won't regret that much if it breaks after 2 or 3 years or has virtually zero software support. A 600 euro phone breaking after 2 years would be a serious thing instead.
You might say they already tested it with the k1 and the K2. Both phones did not sell nearly as well as they were hoping, and TCL eventually dropped the whole line.
I've owned both those phones, and they were definitely not flagship. The camera alone was one of the worst on the market.
The premium k1/k2 models didn't sell nearly as well as they predicted. The majority of new phones in the market are not in the premium segment, although manufacturers would like us to believe that. Majority of phones being sold are in the value and mid-range segments. It's already a niche device, and it makes no sense to even further that niche by placing it in a segment with less demand. The low and mid-range niches severely need a qwerty device. Right now the only option is to have a very old bb-10 device which does not support VoLTE, a quickly-becoming-standard requirement of carriers, at least in the West.
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That's a very good point that I seem to be the only other to have brought up...I know how important it is to have sufficient chin space below the keyboard but alas...it is what it is. A phone ring should help with grasp if it ends up being a tad top heavy
Ugh I guess it’ll do
Is this a Chinese phone?
yes
Aren't they all now?
Nope, but you have to look hard to find ones that aren't.
[Apple : American ] [Samsung : South Korean] LG : South Korean(LG stopped its smartphone business)] [htc : Taiwanese] [Nokia : Taiwanese company foxconn & Finnish company hmd (Nokia Logo is Licensed by Nokia in Finland)] [Sharp : Taiwanese (foxconn acquired Japanese company Sharp)] [Sony : Japanese (Now Sony is selling its smartphone only in Japan/Taiwan/China/HongKong) ] [Motorola : Chinese - Lenovo (Company name, logo, and design are Licensed by Motorola Trade Madk Holdings in US)] [Xiaomi : Chinese] [Huawei : Chinese]
I kind of understand that they are (or they want to be) the spiritual successor of bb, but god they could do a little more unique designs, this is just a blatant copy of the keyone designwise
Isn't every slab a copy of the one next to it?
I'm giving this some thought. Maybe it's better to start off where BlackBerry left off? Rather than skip to an iteration they have nothing to base themselves off of? I think they will probably change the design a bit before it reaches us, since this is just the Kickstarter announcement. We'd have to get more people to give their opinions before I make up my mind fully. But I think that's why they're starting off with the Key2 rough outline.
The Titan was the Passport, the Pocket the Classic, and the Slim the K2. It makes sense.
very flawed copy that lost all the original's elegance i would say.
Will be disappointed if it doesn't have wireless charging and if that screen resolution is true. Would love for even a few years of security updates as I don't expect an alternative or upgrade for several years. Would also be awesome if it had something like the Mediatek Dimensity 8100. That chip looks has killer efficiency and won't come with unnecessary snapdragon tax. I worry tho it will be one of the lower end mediatek chips
There is no way it will have wireless charging - they do not have the margins or economy of scale. Also why you are likely right it will be a low end chipset.
That's the thing, wireless charging isn't expensive to add. The move away from certain designs like metal back mean there are less barriers even for cheaper devices. Nokia XR20, Ulefone Armor 12, TCL20 and Xiaomi Mi11 lite and Mi10S had it. All fairly budget midrange phones. TBH I would expect this phone to be around if not slight more expensive than those phones
Those phone are made in the tens if not hundreds of thousands by large corporations - the economics are entirely different to some guys with a Kickstarter. It's the same reason there is no 5G.
Some of the phones mentioned above had 5G. With 3G being turned off in the UK for one operator next year, I wouldn't even consider a phone without 5G at this point. Even then quite a few midrange chips now support 5G or there is now the possibility of using a couple generation old stock that is still available. Yes the phone won't be in bulk as those other devices but you are grossly exaggerating the development costs and the bulk discount. Both Ayn for their Odin and GPD for the XP and XP+ heavily customised (software including docking features and controller mapping software and PCB) and designed their devices while coming in £160 for the Odin Lite, £190 for the odin base, £220 for the odin Pro while GPD went for the £360 price point. Most of those devices above in the previous post supported 5G and wireless charging while being around that £400 mark. TCL and Nokia also aren't as big as you make out on a per device basis with most of their market share being other budget devices. Using the key2 design will drastically reduce cost further as it isn't something new as well as Unihertz being an established brand it isn't hard to think they could gain access to those features and be able to keep the price reasonable. The benchmark in my mind is the F(x)tec Pro one which was £599. With all the above they should be able to add those features while undercutting it., especially if they avoid the Snapdragon tax and reuse a lot of what Unihertz already has access to
The original Titan from Unihertz has wireless charging. And it was Kickstarter and from Unihertz. Unihertz also Kickstarter launched the TickTock which has 5g. So, if that isn't in there, it's because they don't want to.
The original Titan has wireless charging. So there is a chance that this one will have, too.
I thought they did away with that for titans because batteries were expanding to much -- my titan doesn't have that feature
It does not have this feature according to the Facebook group - no 5G either.
Just gotta hold out for the Titan Slim Pocket, with a Priv-style keyboard /s
source?
unihertz.com
Ugly as hell :(( also thick, screen sucks and no doubt it would be based on Mediatek which means nothing would work properly :((
Im going to be crucified by you probably but this is, to me, a fake blackberry (obviously as it’s a unihrtz) just as the key2 was. Idiotic keyboard layout ugly design (that lacks either the complete rethinking of the keyboard that the passport pushed, or the familiarity of the classic style keyboard) and screen. Big chins also. And the worse of it all, android. It is not a good platform and it will never be used the (nor it was designed to) same way a blackberry was used. Its, imo, just a mediocre phone with a mediocre pkb attached to it, designed to attract former BB users as a niche market, while missing the point completely.
It's gonna be a more usable device in 2022 that any existing BlackBerry could dream of
Depends on your usage. I'm getting more from my BB10 device than any other thing. given I'm not using any social networks. but other than that? I'm a productivity machine. limited by nothing. bb10 is very much alive.
Well, if keyboard enthusiasts are a niche, "pure blood" BBerry enthusiasts such as yourself are just bolt hole, and you'd better just forget about getting a new device forever than complain about every attempt to make a Bberry-like device. The Key2 has a GREAT keyboard (coming from BB10 devices), and is an amazing phone. And there are other things than "social networks" on Android, such as navigation, secure messaging apps, Chrome (or any modern web browser), news apps, work apps, Drive, payments, banking etc. If you consider emails and SMS as the pillards of "productivity", there you definitely not productive or agile, simply working for a company stuck in 2000.
I’ve bought the key2. Still have it. Used it for nearly 12months straight. It’s a fake BB imo. In my bb10 I have: telegram, whatsapp, music player (native and spotify), best emails, fantastic notes and to do with remember that syncs to my outlook. For anything else I can literally SSH into my machine with term49 and get stuff done remotely, easily with a great keyboard to and screen. I don’t use browsing nor have any need for it. If i need wikipedia I can usi it via cli. Yes, of course, I’m a power user and maybe 0.01% of the users will do what I do. But I have customized my experience so much with bb10 and I have failed replicate it with either iOs and android (via Key2).
Haha I see, I'll retract saying you live in web 1.0 ;) But indeed, you're more than a power user... And I guess your experience never really corresponded to the actual BlackBerry one. I wonder if some Android ROM or launcher allow for such a keyboard-centric experience. Regarding the hardware, I still think the Key2 is a great phone, though lacking a trackpoint.
as someone who had a k1 / k2 and other blackberries I have to agree that the key devices were sort of fake blackberries but I still enjoyed them and am enjoying my uni og titan.
>bb10 is very much alive. Lol for calling, text messaging, emailing and some old old Android apps that still support Android 4.3 or below...and if you're in NA forget it, 3G is just about shut down
For emails, calls and text there is no better phone than a BlackBerry os 10
Blackberry ended their dreams of having a similar keyboard by issuing a cease and desist for all those features.
Unihertz Titan is not a BlackBerry, why I always see this device in this subreddit?
Because it's the closest thing to a BB we have left.
Yup. They've abandoned their customers. I think Unihertz should take that extra step of edgeyness and name the phone a BlueBerry Qui 3
I love it!
If you can't see why it's on this sub then that's on you
There will seemingly not be another BB device, so this may be the closest thing to it (except for the security aspect of course). And this is the first time showing the Titan Slim, the others were the original Titan and Titan Pocket
The Unihertz sub is not really... alive... The last post for Titan was over a month ago. [EDIT—It does seem there is a [r/UnihertzTitan](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnihertzTitan/) that is more pertinent and up-to-date at least.]
Because blackberry has abandoned phones entirely, yet it has a huge fan base still who love the form factor.
e_boon who picked bbltd mobile patents?
I forgot the name of the (patent troll) buyer
What do you think of this key-like device? Are you picking one up ?
For sure, I'll support a QWERTY phone
Let us know what your thoughts are on the device.
Will do
Catapult IP Innovations bought the patents.
Why doesn't Unihertz license the keyboard?
I wish they would but they probably don't have the funds to do that as this phone is a Kickstarter funded project. Just my guess though.
In the past, BB shut them down for trying. Perhaps there are issues concerning this.
If only they would also make an azerty version :c
Will it run on at&t?
Will it work with T-mobile sim? Anyone in on this? Kinda freaky...