Is there a non-Android Linux phone with physical keyboard?
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Distribution: Debian Sid AMD64, Raspbian Wheezy, various VMs
Posts: 7,680
Rep:
Is there a non-Android Linux phone with physical keyboard?
I'm a couple of weeks from purchasing a new "smartphone" after deciding, sadly, that I need to get something more modern than my Blackberry 9900.
Open Pandora looks really impressive but it is both expensive and, it seems, needs to be paid for months in advance.
Does anyone have experience with Open Pandora and the like, or are there any Ubuntu phone with physical keyboards or, as a last resort, any Android phones I should look at instead of the Blackberry Priv I'm likely to buy?
Looks like the Nokia E5 might be a option, maybe? Or a Sony Erickson. <Windows mobile though, I think?>
As a aside. My Samsung Edge Phone on screen keyboard works real well with this pen. Which Amazon carries over here.
My pen came for free though. I am sure any plastic rubber tipped pen should work however. But not sure as I have none to test with. My pen is nothing special but a metal tube with a rubber tipped end on it.
Edit: Just tested my phone with a pencil eraser. No input so I guess I am mistaken anything will work as a pen on the touchscreen. I don't know what is special about my metal rubber tipped pen.
just before christmas i reviewed this topic extensively, and for me this one came out on top: https://www.dragonbox.de/en/45-pyra
they have a forum: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/
the hardware is there to use it as a phone.
somebody also whipped up a dialer/receiver script.
please let us know how you get on & what you decide in the end.
Distribution: Debian Sid AMD64, Raspbian Wheezy, various VMs
Posts: 7,680
Original Poster
Rep:
Thanks both, I was planning on a Priv anyhow so I think this seals it. The Open Pandora and Pyra are, I think, very similar so that leaves me something to aim for. I'll not mark this resolved quite yet though, just in case.
Yes, sadly, it is but I don't think there are any non-Android phones left hence this thread. I think I'll have to bite the bullet and get an Android phone and learn to live with it in some way then set it up as a wireless router and save to buy something like the Open Pandora to use for general computing on the move.
Seems physical keyboards are well an truly on the way out and aything but Android is a rarity with limited support.
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