this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2026
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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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[–] lichtmetzger@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

I got the Unihertz Titan 2 in December and I absolutely love it. 12GB of RAM are amazing. The camera isn't good, I hope they'll improve that with the next model.

Clicks is very quiet about the amount of RAM in their device, it seems like they haven't finalized that yet. Given current RAM pricing, I fear a 6GB model coming... :(

[–] Nalivai@lemmy.world 2 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Oh, I also ordered one in December, waiting for arrival still. Glad you liked it, it gives me hopes. Are you finding it's squareness to be an issue?

[–] lichtmetzger@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

It's pretty heavy which was weird for the first few days, but I got used to it. At first, it was a bit hard to hold that heavy brick in my hands and reach the keyboard on the bottom without losing my balance, but now I don't have a problem with it anymore. And I notice now that I can start typing blindly more and more, which is super cool.

The OLED screen on the back is a gimmick I rarely use. But I really like that the device sits flat on a surface if you put it into the official case. There's no camera bump tilting it at an angle, like so many modern smartphones do.

Be aware that they use old BlackBerry screens, which have been sitting in a warehouse for years. They have great resolution, but some of them started to delaminate at the edges and that looks like stains on your screen. I got lucky and my screen is pretty good, but other people got really messed up screens. Unihertz is not handling those issues well, it seems, only offering a free case or very low discounts.

And for now, there has only been one small software update. No security updates at all. They released initial software for early reviewers, then one update for the Kickstarter backers and a bugfix. That's it.

They have promised one more major Android release, but I wouldn't be surprised if that'll be their final update, to be honest.

[–] Nalivai@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago

Unihertz is not handling those issues well

The post messed up with my delivery and it returned back to them, and Unihertz asked me for additional 20 bucks so they resend it. I am pretty sure, if they handle this in this manner, the other issues are not better.

[–] thesdev@feddit.org 5 points 1 day ago

They said 8GB in one of their CES interviews.

[–] ramjambamalam@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

I loved my Passport but the Titan 2 just looked frumpy in a way that the Passport didn't. It's not looks that keeps me from buying it though; it's the complete lack of security updates which would prevent me from using it for work. Unihertz has promised better support starting with Titan 2. If that turns out to be true, then the upcoming Titan Elite will be an attractive competitor to the Clicks Communicator, which has promised 5 years of security updates.