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Things like this interest me because I would like to see some diversity in the mobile phone design space ... in 2015, there is only one design, the design of th

by rsync 11y ago

Things like this interest me because I would like to see some diversity in the mobile phone design space ... in 2015, there is only one design, the design of the original iphone. It's iterated on and refined, but it's still just a monolithic touchscreen slab. So this is interesting, but also frustrating - in the last few years there have been several successors to the MOTO FONE (or MOTO F3) which was the ultimate candybar phone.[1][2] There are the two Nokia phones (220 and 222) and Nokia 130. And now there is this. And the question is, why are these so thick ? This (and the modern Nokia candybars) are basically phones that do nothing ... and yet they are 12, 13, and in the case of this punkt phone, 14.5 (!) mm thick. If the F3 could do it in 9.1mm, and if modern smartphones can do everything they do in even less, then why aren't these "dumbphones" <9mm thick ? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Fone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Fone [2] 114x47x9 mm in size

tcfunk 11y ago
And (at least in my opinion) surprising expensive!
jay-saint 11y ago
I kind of like the design for design sake, but definitely think it could use a diet. I would excuse the thickness and weight if this was a cheap phone. I would by this in a heartbeat for $100 USD but at almost $300 forget it.
ansible 11y ago
For that size, they could have put in a much larger battery.
- zokier 11y ago
  Or at least used the battery bit more efficiently. While I have very little trust in vendor-provided numbers, for example Nokia 222 is rated with 696 hours of standby and 20 hours of talk time. That's quite a jump from 500 hours standby and 5ish(!) hours of talk time. And that 222 costs 40 bucks instead of 300 eur...
nfoz 11y ago
The Blackberry Passport is one of the more innovative modern phones IMO: http://us.blackberry.com/smartphones/blackberry-passport/overview.html http://us.blackberry.com/smartphones/blackberry-passport/ove... The physical keyboard is also a touch-screen, so you can make gestures across the surface of the keys (e.g. swipe right-to-left across the keyboard for "backspace a word"). I love the phone, and people comment on it everywhere I go. However, it's not in stores in the U.S., and most tech-minded people are quick to laugh it off ("oh blackberry is dead"). Seems like the public only wants a very small number of equivalent players in the market.
- joezydeco 11y ago
  How well does the keyboard work when it's that low on the device? I could see the thing rotating away from your hands and falling to the floor if you loosen your grip even a little bit.
  - nfoz 11y ago
    I've been using it for year, and never thought of that as a problem. My fingers are always holding it from behind (they're not just down low) so it's stable. It did take some practice to get used to the keyboard -- same as my first Android phone did. And I won't say I'm that much faster typing on the Blackberry honestly... just that the experience is so much less painful, and I have much easier access to symbols/numbers which I use a lot. (Swipe down across the keyboard, and this brings up an extra 3 rows of on-screen keyboard with symbols/numbers (in addition to the 1 row of context-sensitive symbols that is normally available when typing... so when I'm actually writing I have an either 4 or when desired, 7-row keyboard I'm actually using). I write a lot of work emails this way!
- walterbell 11y ago
  They also have an upcoming Android QWERTY "Priv", http://www.cnet.com/products/blackberry-priv/ http://www.cnet.com/products/blackberry-priv/
  - w-ll 11y ago
tozachroberts 11y ago
I loved the F3 I had, and most people thought I was crazy when I used it. Alas, it was crippled by pretty terrible antenna design, and would drop calls all over regardless of coverage. The SMS capability was almost as entertaining to decipher as Google Voice voicemail transcriptions. One argument for slightly thicker devices is ergonomics. I found the F3 to be slightly tiring to hold on to, and I feel similarly about the Nexus 5 I currently use. At some point, thin becomes too thin and I feel like I am pinching the device instead of holding it comfortably. Obviously, these are subjective elements, but worth considering.
- CrackpotGonzo 11y ago
  Which phone are you currently using? Did you find the terrible texting support on the F3 to be a problem?

by rsync 11y ago

tcfunk 11y ago

And (at least in my opinion) surprising expensive!

jay-saint 11y ago

I kind of like the design for design sake, but definitely think it could use a diet. I would excuse the thickness and weight if this was a cheap phone. I would by this in a heartbeat for $100 USD but at almost $300 forget it.

ansible 11y ago

For that size, they could have put in a much larger battery.

zokier 11y ago
Or at least used the battery bit more efficiently. While I have very little trust in vendor-provided numbers, for example Nokia 222 is rated with 696 hours of standby and 20 hours of talk time. That's quite a jump from 500 hours standby and 5ish(!) hours of talk time. And that 222 costs 40 bucks instead of 300 eur...

nfoz 11y ago

The Blackberry Passport is one of the more innovative modern phones IMO: http://us.blackberry.com/smartphones/blackberry-passport/overview.html http://us.blackberry.com/smartphones/blackberry-passport/ove... The physical keyboard is also a touch-screen, so you can make gestures across the surface of the keys (e.g. swipe right-to-left across the keyboard for "backspace a word"). I love the phone, and people comment on it everywhere I go. However, it's not in stores in the U.S., and most tech-minded people are quick to laugh it off ("oh blackberry is dead"). Seems like the public only wants a very small number of equivalent players in the market.

joezydeco 11y ago
How well does the keyboard work when it's that low on the device? I could see the thing rotating away from your hands and falling to the floor if you loosen your grip even a little bit.
- nfoz 11y ago
  I've been using it for year, and never thought of that as a problem. My fingers are always holding it from behind (they're not just down low) so it's stable. It did take some practice to get used to the keyboard -- same as my first Android phone did. And I won't say I'm that much faster typing on the Blackberry honestly... just that the experience is so much less painful, and I have much easier access to symbols/numbers which I use a lot. (Swipe down across the keyboard, and this brings up an extra 3 rows of on-screen keyboard with symbols/numbers (in addition to the 1 row of context-sensitive symbols that is normally available when typing... so when I'm actually writing I have an either 4 or when desired, 7-row keyboard I'm actually using). I write a lot of work emails this way!
walterbell 11y ago
They also have an upcoming Android QWERTY "Priv", http://www.cnet.com/products/blackberry-priv/ http://www.cnet.com/products/blackberry-priv/
- w-ll 11y ago

tozachroberts 11y ago

I loved the F3 I had, and most people thought I was crazy when I used it. Alas, it was crippled by pretty terrible antenna design, and would drop calls all over regardless of coverage. The SMS capability was almost as entertaining to decipher as Google Voice voicemail transcriptions. One argument for slightly thicker devices is ergonomics. I found the F3 to be slightly tiring to hold on to, and I feel similarly about the Nexus 5 I currently use. At some point, thin becomes too thin and I feel like I am pinching the device instead of holding it comfortably. Obviously, these are subjective elements, but worth considering.

CrackpotGonzo 11y ago
Which phone are you currently using? Did you find the terrible texting support on the F3 to be a problem?