this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2026
437 points (97.6% liked)

Technology

78705 readers
3599 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws
437
QWERTY Phones Are Really Trying to Make a Comeback This Year (gizmodo.com)
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by IcedRaktajino@startrek.website to c/technology@lemmy.world
170 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

After dying a painful death at the hand of the iPhone’s revolutionary capacitive touchscreen, the QWERTY smartphone is rising up from the graveyard this year.

Whether it’s nostalgia for a physical keyboard, frustration at iOS’s ever-worsening software keyboard, or just plain boredom with glass slabs, companies are rebooting QWERTY phones this year for some reason.

At CES 2026:

  • Clicks, the company behind the Clicks keyboard case and the new Power Keyboard, announced plans to sell the Communicator, a “second phone” with a QWERTY keypad
  • Unihertz also teased a new phone with a physical keyboard. The Titan 2 Elite seems to be a less gimmicky version of the Titan 2, which itself was a BlackBerry Passport knockoff but with a bizarre square screen on the backside.

[T]wo QWERTY phone announcements in this still very new year suggest there may be some kind of trend. Maybe after 19 years of the iPhone and touchscreens defining the mobile experience, it’s time to go back to the physical keyboard and its more tactile typing.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] lichtmetzger@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

It's pretty heavy which was weird for the first few days, but I got used to it. At first, it was a bit hard to hold that heavy brick in my hands and reach the keyboard on the bottom without losing my balance, but now I don't have a problem with it anymore. And I notice now that I can start typing blindly more and more, which is super cool.

The OLED screen on the back is a gimmick I rarely use. But I really like that the device sits flat on a surface if you put it into the official case. There's no camera bump tilting it at an angle, like so many modern smartphones do.

Be aware that they use old BlackBerry screens, which have been sitting in a warehouse for years. They have great resolution, but some of them started to delaminate at the edges and that looks like stains on your screen. I got lucky and my screen is pretty good, but other people got really messed up screens. Unihertz is not handling those issues well, it seems, only offering a free case or very low discounts.

And for now, there has only been one small software update. No security updates at all. They released initial software for early reviewers, then one update for the Kickstarter backers and a bugfix. That's it.

They have promised one more major Android release, but I wouldn't be surprised if that'll be their final update, to be honest.

[–] Nalivai@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Unihertz is not handling those issues well

The post messed up with my delivery and it returned back to them, and Unihertz asked me for additional 20 bucks so they resend it. I am pretty sure, if they handle this in this manner, the other issues are not better.