16 Mar
2014
16 Mar
'14
7:02 a.m.
On 15 March 2014 16:22, Philip Belben <philip at axeside.co.uk> wrote:
In June 2010, Liam (who has already responded to this thread)
I have? Yours is the 1st response I can see. Do you perhaps mean over in CCtalk?
posted about
an Android device with a real keyboard, and palmtop-sized, rather than
phone-sized like the Motorola Droid.
Sridhar has emailed me offlist about the article, to commend the
Droid. Sadly it was not sold much in Europe; the "Motorola Milestone"
was launched over here, with no splash at all, and I think the
Milestone 2. Nothing later.
But I tried them. Well, the 1. For me, it was too small to be of any
use at all, like most Blackberries are - sized for women's or small
men's hands. I am a large man with exceptionally large hands. I find a
keyboard less than about 5" wide more or less unusable, and I find
touchscreen keyboards largely unusable for the same reason - which is
why I have a phone with a 5.2" screen, in an effort to get one big
enough to enter text on with only one or two swears out loud per 3-4
words.
The 3 and 4 weren't sold here at all, AFAIK.
I also tried a Nokia N900, another of the last-gen keyboarded devices.
Better but still too small for me: just a 4" screen, which is on the
wrong side of the edge of being too small to be usable to me.
But by the time I came to try and buy
one in early 2012 (when I got fed up with trying to source replacement parts
for my Psion 3) the smartbook market had collapsed, and no-one offered such
a device.
Indeed.
It seems rarely realised that the electronics market is just as
fashion-driven as the clothing market.
Late in 2012 finally gave in and bought a pocket-sized
tablet PC (for which
read "smartphone" - in fact a Samsung Note). I don't find it very
convenient to use, and would love an Android palmtop! I still haven't
ported even half the things I used to do on my Psion...
Ditto. I have a Note 2 myself.
Another possiblity: years ago in a charity shop (US:
thrift store) I bought
a Targus Stowaway folding keyboard. This was a full-sized keyboard that
folded up to about half the size of a mass-market paperback. The one I have
docks with a Compaq iPaq, which I don't have. The one I found googling it
docks with a Handspring Visor, which I haven't even heard of before. Does
such a device exist that will work with a smartphone?
I've had one. Frankly the time it takes to take it out, open it, turn
it on, wait for a connection and then find some place or some way to
hold or support keyboard and phone simultaneously destroys any
potential use for the thing, for me. They are, to me, utterly useless.
It needs to be:
* built in
* always-on
* powered by the same power source - no separate batteries or charging
* not wirelessly connected: a physical link for instant use
* strongly physically connected to the device
* protected from accidental activation when not in use (i.e. closed
over in some way)
* at least 5" wide, with a separate number row & cursor keys
AFAIK this is not obtainable from any vendor in the world any more.
The trouble is, it would probably use bluetooth, and
there is little to beat
a bluetooth keyboard for creating security holes! OTOH, phones usually have
a jack socket for speakers, handsets, etc. ISTR this has a digital input of
some sort. I wonder how easy it would be to bitbang on that?
No idea, but for me, still not much help. A keyboard for which I need
to sit at a table might as well not be there. I have cheap notebook
computers for that.
--
Liam Proven * Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
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