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submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by IcedRaktajino@startrek.website to c/technology@lemmy.world

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.

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[-] kittenzrulz123@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 3 months ago

Im personally typing this from my clicks for pixel :3

[-] radiouser@crazypeople.online 1 points 3 months ago

clicks for pixel

If it wasn't $139 I'd consider it. Ngl, even $39 seems excessively expensive...

[-] kittenzrulz123@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 months ago

To be fair that's literally all qwerty keyboard phones, the only difference is my expensive keyboard is attached to a proper phone with decent software support (also yeah its expensive but compared to what, nobody else sells anything similar).

[-] Dholi@lemmy.ca 0 points 3 months ago

Blackberry please come back.

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[-] anon_8675309@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Needs Signal as well as LoRa /mesh

I’d be all over it then.

Except I find MrMobile weird.

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[-] Cloudstash@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

These small keyboars are very bad and just really horrible when using. At least in my experience.

[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 0 points 3 months ago

Yeah, small devices are always going to be awkward to type on.

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[-] JTskulk@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

Do software keyboards not use the QWERTY layout? Why are we calling hardware keyboards on a phone a QWERTY phone?!

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[-] ambitiousslab@feddit.uk 0 points 3 months ago

There were some breakthroughs in postmarketOS with the BlackBerry KEY2 recently. I really hope a phone with the Blackberry Classic form factor gets good mobile linux support in the next few years (bonus points if it's a linux-first device!) A physical keyboard (in that form factor) is one of the few things that could convince me to ditch the Librem 5.

I grew up on the tail end of Blackberry's dominance. Most of the people in my school had a Blackberry, I've always envied those keyboards, and I feel really nostalgic about them.

There's something special about that form factor that appeals to me more than the N900 or clamshell designs. I think it's that they're happy to compromise the screen for a great keyboard, rather than the other way round.

[-] FenderStratocaster@lemmy.world -1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I'm trying to get my hands on one. There's a few apps that I still want a smart phone for like email, navigation, Garmin Connect. This would be awesome.

But mark my words, the Clicks Communicator will be a piece of shit.

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this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2026
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