smartphone The crowdfunding campaign for F(x)tec Pro1 X, a slider phone that'll ship with either LineageOS or Ubuntu Touch, was announced on Indiegogo

[samcool55]

14 hours ago, dizmo said:

I don't think there's a big market for these at all. I'd go as far as to say that most people that need a keyboard to type on while out would be better suited with something like an iPad with their keyboard. They're incredibly light and easily slide into a bag.

But, sliders were perfectly fine years ago, they've existed for a LONG time so engineering wise, they know how to make it decent. They can also turn it into something like a motorola razr and whack a keyboard on it. Won't exactly be a budget phone but hey, it's unique at least.

And an iPad doesn't exactly fit in my pocket. I rarely walk around with a bag these days.

Also it's difficult to know if there's a market for something that straight up impossible to get for the average person. You can't exactly just order them from amazon or something.

[dizmo]

1 hour ago, AluminiumTech said:

It's not $800.

There are versions and bundles at different price points including: $650, $680, and some enthusiast bundles for $720 , $820, and $850.

Any of the models above $680 are completely unnecessary.

 

That's not the point. This phone has a camera because it needs to not because it should.

 

No it really isn't. It's about the right size for this considering this is the around the size of battery older 835 devices used.

 

Compared to similar or competing devices the Nord is much faster.

 

The main competition for this would be the Pinephone or the Librem 5.

The campaign is already fully funded as of me checking.

 

Well no, it's a niche. They're not expecting everybody and their mom to buy one.

 

I know you're quoting a different person but I've used an 845. It was a bit of a step up compared to 820 which I also have used but honestly the only real difference was 820 was hot and 845 wasn't. Sure the 845 was faster but in real world usage it felt identical on LineageOS.

 

Cos both of them on LineageOS are stupidly fast.

 

I don't really count early bird Indiegogo pricing as the actual price. Their retail price is $829.

 

That has to be one of the poorest excuses I've ever heard. "It's just there because it has to be." Are you fucking kidding me?

 

Right, why should we have any kind of improvement? Let's go with the industry's status quo from 2017.

 

You've completely missed the point. They're calling it a flagship device, when it's not. That's basically saying that their device can compete with current flagships, which it cannot.

 

Fully funded means nothing. I hope you know that.

 

Right. Next to no market. Which is exactly what I said.

 

1 hour ago, samcool55 said:

But, sliders were perfectly fine years ago, they've existed for a LONG time so engineering wise, they know how to make it decent. They can also turn it into something like a motorola razr and whack a keyboard on it. Won't exactly be a budget phone but hey, it's unique at least.

And an iPad doesn't exactly fit in my pocket. I rarely walk around with a bag these days.

Also it's difficult to know if there's a market for something that straight up impossible to get for the average person. You can't exactly just order them from amazon or something.

Initially yes but every sliding phone (I've owned a few) I've had has had problems later on in it's life with loose hinges, wobble, and general unpleasantness.

You'd have an awfully cramped keyboard in a Razr type phone, and without the Blackberry magic, I don't think another company could really pull it off. It'd be an even more niche product, and that's likely why we haven't seen one come to fruition, as it would be by far the easiest. Sure, but how often do you really need a keyboard?

 

I'm reminded of Blackberry. You know, that company that made phones with physical keyboards. They were widely available, their sales however, were not Their keyboards were also substantially better than what's on offer here.

 

[Spindel]

2007 called and wants its physical keyboard back.

[samcool55]

18 hours ago, dizmo said:

I'm reminded of Blackberry. You know, that company that made phones with physical keyboards. They were widely available, their sales however, were not Their keyboards were also substantially better than what's on offer here.

I had a Q5 which was a nice phone. But imo the problem is that they got caught by android really quickly because all the things that made BB os unique was quickly gone with third-party developers creating apps that had the same functionality.

 

And when they finally did turn to android. Their phones were just too expensive to get any marketshare. Even today a key 2 is a similar price of the fx which is current-gen.

 

If they let's say sell a somewhat decent android phone with keyboard for 200 dollar or less, i'm sure some people will buy it. It would be an ideal phone for people that want stuff like messenger and whatsapp (which means they want android) but still want a physical keyboard because it's a "only text and call" phone.

[Commodus]

29 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

I had a Q5 which was a nice phone. But imo the problem is that they got caught by android really quickly because all the things that made BB os unique was quickly gone with third-party developers creating apps that had the same functionality.

 

And when they finally did turn to android. Their phones were just too expensive to get any marketshare. Even today a key 2 is a similar price of the fx which is current-gen.

 

If they let's say sell a somewhat decent android phone with keyboard for 200 dollar or less, i'm sure some people will buy it. It would be an ideal phone for people that want stuff like messenger and whatsapp (which means they want android) but still want a physical keyboard because it's a "only text and call" phone.

You can really pinpoint the start of BlackBerry's troubles to January 9th, 2007, when Apple introduced the iPhone.

 

BlackBerry's (then RIM's) first big mistake was to assume that a device like the iPhone was "impossible" (there are leaks that revealed its thinking at the time). It insisted that a big touchscreen would use too much battery, that everyone would prefer hardware keyboards for all eternity, that it was more important to bow to carriers and deliver a crippled web rather than the full web users wanted. Instead of doing what it should have done, which was to completely overhaul its experience as quickly as possible, BlackBerry clung to its old ways and only produced its badly made iPhone-alike, the Storm, because Verizon pushed it. That's nearly two years of wasted time by itself.

 

Remember, the iPhone first overtook BlackBerry phones in market share in summer 2008, before the first Android phone had even launched.

 

Android definitely pushed things over the edge, but I'd say the accelerated downfall started in late 2009, when Motorola released the Droid. I remember that well because BlackBerry had an improved phone, the Storm 2, but Verizon was so mad about the original Storm's failure that it deliberately timed the Storm 2 to launch the same day as the much-hyped Droid, guaranteeing that the new BlackBerry would be completely overshadowed.

 

You're right that BlackBerry's decline involved the company losing the uniqueness of its features, but by that point the proverbial writing was already on the wall. Its core failure was being too slow to adapt to changing tastes in phone design.

[sof006]

Cool but, snapdragon 835? Also that design on the back looks very dated.

[dizmo]

16 hours ago, samcool55 said:

I had a Q5 which was a nice phone. But imo the problem is that they got caught by android really quickly because all the things that made BB os unique was quickly gone with third-party developers creating apps that had the same functionality.

 

And when they finally did turn to android. Their phones were just too expensive to get any marketshare. Even today a key 2 is a similar price of the fx which is current-gen.

 

If they let's say sell a somewhat decent android phone with keyboard for 200 dollar or less, i'm sure some people will buy it. It would be an ideal phone for people that want stuff like messenger and whatsapp (which means they want android) but still want a physical keyboard because it's a "only text and call" phone.

It wasn't quick. It was a slow, painful defeat. They kept trying to get their Blackberry Store to work, and no one adopted it. It wasn't so much them getting outplayed by third party developers, but those third party developers just not making apps/making apps with far lower quality for their OS.

 

The only reason the Key2 is expensive now is because it's not made anymore; much like you'll see old gen PC parts retain value, when they're not worth that at all.They made cheaper devices as well. They just weren't popular. The PKB, when done to the level Blackberry did, will always be significantly more expensive to implement.You simply can't make it for under $200 and make a device that makes any sense at all.

[YamiYukiSenpai]

On 11/2/2020 at 10:35 PM, dizmo said:

They don't list storage type. Is it UFS? If so, what version? If it's not, I certainly wouldn't go near this

It's UFS.  I asked.

[dizmo]

5 hours ago, YamiYukiSenpai said:

It's UFS.  I asked.

Did they happen to say what version?

[Fnige]

On 11/5/2020 at 2:37 AM, Commodus said:

Its core failure was being too slow to adapt to changing tastes in phone design.

The blockbuster of phone companies?

[Commodus]

12 hours ago, SlimyPython said:

The blockbuster of phone companies?

Pretty much. Just like Blockbuster, BlackBerry assumed that its initial formula for success (in this case, keyboard phones focused on business and efficiency) never, ever had to change. It only reluctantly admitted that it needed to modernize, and by the time it had, it was too late.

 

To be fair: most phone makers were caught flat-footed when the iPhone arrived. Palm was really the only one that understood the seriousness of the threat (in part because it had a key former Apple exec onboard), and even then, a botched execution and HP's internal politics prevented it from becoming all it might have been.