Physical keyboards on phones, who knew they were missed so much?

Physical keyboards on modern phones are a sight rarer than unicorns nowadays, with barely any manufacturers still interested in even considering the idea of one. Which is why it should come as a major surprise that, apparently, a lot of you actually wish you could get a phone like the old BlackBerry models.

Physical keyboards on phones are dearly missed

The Unihertz Titan 2 Elite will feature a gorgeous, expansive physical QWERTY keyboard under its display. A poll followed this news, asking you how you felt about physical keyboards on modern phones today, and the results were surprising.A whopping 77.35 percent of respondents claimed that they missed the tactile feel of a physical keyboard on their phone and that they would buy such a phone in a heartbeat. Of course, I think it’s reasonable to assume that you meant you would buy such a phone if your company of choice made one.Almost 15 percent of voters said that they would welcome such a phone if it managed to retain the slim form factor that we’ve all come to expect from modern smartphones. Only a little under seven percent of you said that you were happy with your current all-glass smartphone and that a phone with a physical keyboard did not interest you.
Lastly, less than one percent of voters said that they preferred the touch-related features that modern smartphones boast, which would be difficult to recreate with a physical keyboard. So, interestingly enough, even the people who are perfectly happy with all-glass phones are mostly focusing on the aesthetic rather than any tangible advantage. What are your thoughts on phones with physical keyboards?

Are these phones coming back?

The Unihertz Titan 2 Elite looks stunning. | Image credit — Unihertz

Unfortunately for the majority of voters, such phones are not really making a big comeback. While options like the Unihertz Titan 2 Elite and the Clicks Communicator have brought physical keyboards to modern phones, this is still a very niche category.

Major players like Samsung, Apple, Google, OnePlus, and Xiaomi are unlikely to consider such phones unless one of these companies decides to try its luck. Such a move would obviously spur all of the others into action immediately, but don’t hold out hope.

We could always use more variety

Unlike most new gimmicks nowadays, a phone with a massive physical QWERTY keyboard actually interests me a bit. It might just be the nostalgia talking, but I would at least consider a phone like this if it were a plausible option.

What these new phones are doing also makes the entire aspect a lot more appealing to me. It’s not just keyboards with only physical buttons: the buttons are touch sensitive too. So if you feel like it, you can also swipe to write and perform other touch functions as well. That is a very interesting way to tackle the limitations of physical keyboards, and I’d love to see other phone companies giving this a try.