this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2026
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278
QWERTY Phones Are Really Trying to Make a Comeback This Year (gizmodo.com)
submitted 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) by IcedRaktajino@startrek.website to c/technology@lemmy.world
100 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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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[–] Franconian_Nomad@feddit.org 37 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Good, writing with a touch screen is absolutely horrendous.

[–] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 21 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

All this bullshit about phones with folding screens nowadays when what I really want is a phone with a folding mechanical 104-key :P

[–] PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago

I love my 100% keyboard with white backlighting. Was hard to find a decent premade one but I did some years ago.

[–] Franconian_Nomad@feddit.org 9 points 19 hours ago

Would also erase the need for the atrocious spellcheck. Few minutes ago I wanted to write „random“ it got changed to „ransom“ and when I changed it again I wrote “randon“ by accident.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 3 points 17 hours ago

Let it fold: one half holds the landscape screen, and across the lengthwise hinge is space for a wonderful keyboard. Let it be a phone-phone when it's clammed up and you still have space for Qi and a 3.5mm. BLISS

[–] flamingos@feddit.uk 8 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Writing is okish, editing however is horrendous.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 1 points 29 minutes ago* (last edited 28 minutes ago)

I wonder how this will be with cursor navigation, though.

Gboard has a text editor mode built in, but you have to dig a bit to enable it which makes it feel more pointless