The Vodafone V345 - the cheapest physical keyboard phone?

The V345 is one of the more basic physical keyboard phones, with a price tag to match. While it boasts its suitability for social networking and web access, this appears to mean that it can access the internet – albeit slowly – and it has built-in Facebook so there’s no need to download the app.

In appearance it is similar to the iconic design of the Blackberry Curve, with perhaps a touch of the familiar early Nokias around the curved edges. The keys on the QWERTY keyboard are similar in size and shape to the Curve, although some have complained that they are too small. At 105mm in height and 58mm in length, it is fairly standard, although with a 12mm depth it is quite thick. It does, however, have the option for push or pull email, which is a useful aspect.

The V345 is undoubtedly a simple phone – the camera is a mere 0.3 megapixels (an example of somebody else's 0.3 megapixel photo can be found here) and it can only connect to a 2G network – but it could be perfect for someone who just wants the basic functions of a phone. It is the Nokia 3310 for the Smartphone generation.

The Spike physical keyboard for iPhone

This is one of the most impressive creations we've seen. Spike is a brilliant piece of engineering from an organisation called SoloMatrix, who used the Kickstarter crowdfunding model to get their project off the ground. And what a product it is.

The notion of a physical keyboard attachment to attach to the inherently sexy iPhone's manicured form sounds like it will be a clumsy, Bluetooth keyboard work-around. Not so: Spike is a genuinely attractive piece of machinery which has similar functionality to the Blackberry keyboard, even down to the chamfer on the keys themselves.

QWERTY for touchscreen

It works through the capacitive touchscreen of the iPhone. Yep, that's right, this thing overlays the on-screen 'keyboard' and applies a layer of tactile plastic between you and those pesky touchscreen 'keys'. Tim Hornyack reckons it isn't as good as his Blackberry (which I guess we already knew) but hails it as a general success, despite some problems with key recognition.

Obviously this is a relatively convoluted workaround, effectively simulating a real QWERTY phone with a plastic add-on. It's not going to be as good as your Curve or Bold. But still, it bodes well for the future of the physical keyboard as it demonstrates that there's an appetite for practicality and the money to back it up.

We'll be covering the world of iPhone physical keyboards in more depth in future, so if you know of any others then leave a comment or get in touch.

The Asha 205 - Nokia's new QWERTY phone

The Asha 205 is being lauded by Nokia as their ‘most social’ phone ever. Designed with Facebook and Twitter in mind, this Nokia physical keyboard phone is a marvellous example of a feature phone targeted at a young audience who value the physical keyboard for high-volume text communication.

The keyboard boasts isolated keys, as well as quick-access button. As well as the full keyboard, this phone even has a dedicated Facebook hot key – the first time this feature has been included in a Nokia phone.

The phone comes with the Nokia Xpress browser. According to Nokia, this software “uses cloud-based servers to reduce data volumes by 90%”. The result, they say, is that the Nokia Asha 205 sips data rather than guzzling it.

In addition to the physical keyboard, Nokia have included a brand new sharing technology called ‘Slam’. This enables the user to instantly share a file (a photo, for example) with the nearest Bluetooth-enabled device without having to pair the devices first. Of course you can still send the photo over social networks and email, but this feature is likely to prove popular among users who want to share with a specific device rather than broadcast on Facebook.

Dual SIM

One of the most important features (besides the physical keyboard, of course) is the dual SIM. Not only does this allow for rapid swapping of SIM cards, but it also enables the user to have both a work and a personal number on the same handset. RIM claim to be simulating this separation to some extent with their BB10 OS, but not to the extent that two separate phone numbers can use the same handset.

Samsung’s ‘Godiva’ jettisons its physical keyboard

Photos leaked earlier this month showed Samsung’s latestsmartphone, currently going by the name ‘Godiva’. The handset (destined for Verizon in the USA) comes with Android 4.1.2 on a 1.4GHz MSM8960, making nice pictures on an uprated 720p display – but no physical keyboard.

Earlier speculations that the phone could carry a sliding keyboard (fuelled by the similarities between the Godiva’s SCH-i425 designation and that of the earlier keyboard-enabled SCH-i415 Stratosphere II) have been shown to be wildly optimistic, as the photos show a firmly touchscreen mobile handset.

Still, it would appear that the Godiva will be a pleasant JellyBean phone. Minor disappointment from some corners of the Android world regarding the lack of a physical keyboard phone might just be enough to spur Samsung into making a QWERTY Android handset. 

Getting Sideways - Landscape, Slide-Out Physical Keyboard on the Samsung SGH-T699

Samsung's next offering has been the subject of a huge tract of speculation and guesswork over the past few months. Many have been expecting a physical keyboard behemoth, powered with a monstrous processor and having the technical capability to compete in the Blackberry-dominated QWERTY smartphone market. These people may be somewhat underwhelmed by the Samsung SGH-T699, but it looks like a decent little handset anyway.

Offering a 5mp camera, a Snapdragon processor, a 720 x1280 display, the Ice Cream Sandwich operating system and of course a landscape-orientated, slide out physical keyboard, the SGH-T699 is not exactly a heavyweight. However it will appeal to business users who want a nippy little machine with a full five-row QWERTY attached. The keyboard looks decent enough, but Samsung know that they need to live up to Blackberry's supreme front-facing ergonomics and the landscape based Nokias which once ruled the market.

Some of the greatest QWERTY phones have boasted the same form - a full physical keyboard slides out from beneath the screen unit, resulting in an easily accessible array of keys with enough space between them for even the clumsiest thumbs. Samsung's own smartphones have followed this format - the Captivate Glide has a preposterous name but has been well received, the Epic 4G is a bit of a toy but still has a physical keyboard, while the Stratosphere was the only real physical keyboard offering for Verizon customers in the USA.

Trying to shoehorn a physical keyboard onto a small chassis doesn't work, so Samsung's offering is likely to be chunkier than its touchscreen or front-facing keyboard counterparts. The amount of speculation and conversation that this leak has caused is a good indication of how badly the market wants a physical keyboard on upcoming smartphones. The Samsung SGH-T699 might not have answered all our problems, but it's getting there.

Related: The Huawei M660 is another low-budget physical keyboard smartphone, this time with a front-facing QWERTY layout. But why are manufacturers concentrating on the featherweight end of the market? US and European consumers are desperate for a powerful contender.

Tactus Physical Keyboard - We Have The Technology

A touchscreen which transforms into a physical keyboard has been announced by Tactus Technology to much excitement from critics and the public. Physical Keyboard Phones is excited about this for three reasons.

Firstly, it demonstrates that people are seeing the flaws inherent in touch screen technology. Rather than pretending that touchscreens are effective as word processing tools, or simply ignoring the business users who require keyboards altogether, the industry (at least, parts of it) is starting to respond to the consumer demand. What's also interesting is that the tech scene and mainstream media are getting excited about it both in terms of gadgetry awesomeness and genuine practical value.

Secondly, it's refreshing to see that effort is being spent on innovation rather than half-baked software workarounds. The supposed solution to the accuracy problem encountered by touchscreen users was originally an autocorrect feature, and everybody knows how that turned out. Now, money is being spent trying to bridge the gap between the touchscreen's sexiness and the keyboard's practicality. And we like that.

Thirdly, the unison of touchscreen and physical keyboard works both ways. It'll bring keyboards to touchscreens, yeah, but it'll also bring touchscreens to applications where keyboards have always been the norm. An ordinary cheap desktop keyboard might have greater levels of interactivity thanks to a dynamic display, or a TV remote could have a database of recorded shows for scrolling through.

Of course there will inevitably be teething problems and there's no chance the tech will be on the next generation of Blackberry handsets. For now, business users will need to buy a Blackberry or get a keyboard for their smartphone or iPhone. But this development bodes well for business users and those who require a physical keyboard on their phone.

Apple Flirted With Physical Keyboard for iPhone

Apple Flirted With Physical Keyboard For iPhone

It's difficult to imagine a pre-iPhone technological landscape. Way back in summer 2007, against a backdrop of Blackberry domination and Rihanna's Umbrella, Apple tentatively launched what would quickly become one of the greatest pieces of consumer tech and indeed one of the most iconic commercial products of all time.

We've grown very used to its sleek appearance, full-frontal touch screen and dainty dimensions. But during its development more than half a decade ago, the iPhone nearly became a very different beast.

Tony Fadell, an iPod engineer and one of the original architects of Apple's audio strategy, has made the startling revelation that one of the three iPhone concepts had a built-in physical keyboard. This would have changed everything, both from the perspective of PKP and in terms of the wider world. As I'm about to demonstrate.

• An iPhone without a touchscreen would have completely changed the way mobile phones developed from the year 2007 onwards. Without the explosive popularity of the iPhone, fewer non-Apple products would have embraced the touchscreen technology and mobile phones would have continued on their downward spiral towards excessive miniaturization.
• Even if the iPhone had a touch screen as well as a physical keyboard (like the newer Blackberry Bold models) the emphasis would never have been placed on touch screens like it is now. Phones like the Blackberry, the Nokia E7 and the later HTCs would have become the norm, both for business and consumer markets.
• Explorations into the touchscreen-only market would have been made by the first manufacturers to embrace the tech - HP, Nokia and maybe (don't email me about the IBM Simon)
• Angry Birds would never have been possible.

Phones at the time of the iPhone's release were drifting towards the front-facing or slide-out keyboards. The emphasis was placed on speedy messaging - something which seems to have fallen by the wayside in the touchscreen era. Nokia and Blackberry had different approaches to keypads (landscape slide-out and front-facing respectively) but both offered much greater messaging than any touchscreen, especially the primitive resistive touchscreens of yesteryear.

Had it not been for HTC's introduction of Android phones with physical keyboards (which Steve Jobs believed were in violation of Apple's intellectual property) and later Motorola's Droid, the iPhone might have permanently destroyed the physical keyboard's presence in the consumer arena. As it stands, users are more keen on the sleeker, error-prone smartphones than they are on chunky, efficient keyboards - with HTC focussing on touchscreens, users are left with a choice between Blackberry or the dark side.