3 ms·
> One of the earliest HTC android devices, after the Evo 4G, was a version with a slide out keyboard. The first Android phone (let alone the first HTC Android)
by RainaRelanah 9y ago
> One of the earliest HTC android devices, after the Evo 4G, was a version with a slide out keyboard.
The first Android phone (let alone the first HTC Android) was the HTC Dream, with a physical keyboard. Back in those days Android didn't even have a software keyboard -- you had to use the physical keyboard.
By the time the Evo 4g came out, hardware keyboards were already considered second class citizens. The Evo Shift 4g had a worse screen, worse camera, and a worse CPU than the Evo 4g despite being released a year later.
Thankfully a few companies have picked up the UMPC market, with products like the GPD Win and the Gemini PDA. I don't need a hardware keyboard on my phone, but I do need a portable device with one for emergency SSH sessions while on the road.
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoI continue to retain the belief that hardware vendors intentionally killed keyboard sliders by making them worse phones than their non-keyboard counterparts, then claiming they didn't need to build them because nobody wanted them. They sat a full year behind in hardware specs in most cases.
- RainaRelanah 9y agoI don't believe it is the only reason, but it certainly significantly hurt them. They're also less attractive/bulkier, have less room for battery, are more expensive to design/manufacture, have higher failure rates, etc. I would still pay ridiculous amounts for a phone with flagship specs and flagship build quality, with a physical keyboard.