this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2026
451 points (97.7% liked)

Technology

82621 readers
3160 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Nalivai@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The Titan 2 Elite seems to be a less gimmicky version of the Titan 2

They just had to announce it after I ordered the one with all the "bizarre" gimmicks.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] lichtmetzger@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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... :(

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

They said 8GB in one of their CES interviews.

[–] Nalivai@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (2 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?

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I'll care when they're Dvorak phones /s

[–] Tylerdurdon@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I was a huge 'tactical keyboard on phone' kinda guy. Then I got acclimated to Swype. I don't think I could ever go back but think choice is good.

[–] Miaou@jlai.lu 3 points 2 months ago

Swipe was acquired by Microsoft, if you wanted a reason to go back :)

[–] cygnus@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Hell yes - as long as it still fits in my pocket. That was a prolem with some of the later Blackberry models.

[–] PhobosAnomaly@feddit.uk 3 points 2 months ago

The Passport was actually a really decent phone but the jokes did get old.

"When are you going to wall-mount your phone?"

"fucking hell that will kill someone if you drop it"

"you don't need to send that text, that person can fucking read it from here!"

etc etc etc

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I actually have a usecase for virtual keyboards - being able to easily change the layout on-the-fly (which is obviously impossible with a physical one)

[–] zalgotext@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What do you mean by "changing the layout", going from QWERTY to Dvorak, or something like switching between English and Chinese glyphs? Both are possible at least in software. Technically you can move around/replace keycaps to match your layout too, but obviously that would be super inconvenient to do regularly

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] ClydapusGotwald@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Yeah this is something I need since my fingers don’t always register on touch screens.

[–] kittenzrulz123@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Im personally typing this from my clicks for pixel :3

[–] radiouser@crazypeople.online 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

clicks for pixel

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

[–] kittenzrulz123@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 month 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).

[–] MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

People should look into the ikko mind one too. Its shit that they have so much emphasis on their "AI OS" which is just an integrated app (which can be requested to be removed before delivery or removed via adb). But the hardware looks solid.

Its a square screen phone that you can get a keyboard case for that includes a hifi dac. Its camera is a big sony sensor that can flip over to the front so they didn't need to split the camera money between two or more lenses.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] nightmare786@leminal.space 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

the Voyager and enV style phones with the touchscreen in front and flip to open to qwerty keyboard really gave the best of the worlds

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] bluGill@fedia.io 3 points 2 months ago

Hopefully firefox and the like will start putting spellcheck in their mobile applications again. I got mad at auto correct because it was worse than my spelling (at least you can guess what I meant - auto correct often changed to the wrong word: you wouldn't think to I might mean something else). I also often use a bluetooth keyboard, again spell check is needed.

[–] Gleddified@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 month ago

The blackberry priv was the perfect phone form factor I just want that but with better hardware inside

[–] MuckyWaffles@leminal.space 3 points 2 months ago

I'm so for this -- The stagnation in the smartphone industry has left me hungry, and a month ago I bought a nice flip phone, which I've been using for the last month. I would totally buy something like this too!

load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›