https://liliputing.com/lilygo-t-deck-plus-is-a-70-handheld-with-gps-lora-and-a-blackberry-keyboard/
LILYGO T-Deck Plus is a $70 handheld with GPS, LoRa, and a BlackBerry keyboard
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/39601325
If this had a 4g module and possibility to install messaging apps, il dump my smartphone for this one without blinking. My phone is basically a chat machine, but I miss so much those blackberry keyboards with physical keys...
There was a flip out physical keyboard phone called the fxtech pro 1 that was broadly liked by reviewers. I wonder if they ever made new models
E: nope
Same as the Unihertz Titan. I ran with that for two years and it was decent, if underpowered.
The dream is all but dead for all fourteen and a half of us QWERTY phone enthusiasts I think. A surprising number went to the Samsung Galaxy Flip models, though having used this for two years or so, I wouldn't recommend it either.
Maybe one day...
Honestly I just want the pinephone to be better supported. Fuck android phones, I want a Linux palmtop like God intended.
I too ran a unihertz titan for a few years, massive beast of a thing but I love a keyboard. Before that I had the blackberry keytwo which was my favourite phone of all time.
I backed the planet computers astroslide before they took everyone's money and ran after delivering a fraction of the units promised and what was delivered was woefully out of date due to their ineptitude.
I still dream of a blackberry key three, but alas my dreams will never be fulfilled and I'm trapped on a shitty touch screen :'(
I would love a good qwerty phone. They've just been making consistently shitty ones. Just give me one in the end form factor as the BB Curve and we're golden. I don't want to have a massive slab of a phone just to have a keyboard.
So I actually bought the f(x)tech Pro^1x thinking that it was going to be great having a physical keyboard that slides out again. But I found that I rarely actually used it. Using it required that the screen be in landscape mode. I'm actually much happier just using a different touch keyboard layout. I use Thumb-Key specifically now. It took some time to retrain my brain but I quite enjoy it.
I’ve got one of these. Fantastic phone but the official OS was basically abandoned in terms of security updates. Need to check out custom ROMs.
I bought a small Bluetooth keyboard like this a while back, but it was unusable due to key bounce. I think of trying this one but feel a bit burned by the previous:
https://www.adafruit.com/product/3601
Besides giving physical keys, it's nice to free up screen space.
If this had a 4g module
It says in the first paragraph that it does not have cellular connectivity.
There are several that do but you're gonna pay up the nose for them, which is a bit ridiculous. Murida, lightphone, and Punkt, off the top of my head.
Oh I see. Yeah, slap a cell modem and SIM card on this thing, write a basic-ass FOSS OS, and baby you got a stew goin'.
I guess this is cool but it would be better with a cellular modem. I had a phone in this format (Nokia E63) and loved it. It eventually flaked out and also the LTE network was shut down so it became unusable. Would be great to also have a MURS or HF radio with a super slow modem for much longer range text communication than is possible with LoRA.
Isn't this a T-Deck? Shows as supported on the meshtastic site.
Loving it. Already be ordering if I wasn't between jobs.
What sorts of things can one do programming it? 1/4" nut the standard camera mount I think? Wonder if the radio could dial in my crappy walkie-talkies, enough to send anyway?
This could be rad if someone could get open maps on it. Tiny little GPS map tool using a keyboard with Meshtastic communications.