Preferences

I used one a few years back and it felt like magic in my hands. It was surreal to think how functional and efficient old tech was, yet we totally left it behind for something objectively worse. I get why we did, but wow, those were so much nicer to type on than a cold, flat, non-tactile surface.

Despite that, modern screens have become remarkably accurate and responsive. Autocorrect is pretty good and makes up for a lot of the slop. I can often type without looking at the onscreen keyboard, and that’s impressive in and of itself (not because of me, but because of the technology). The trade off still makes sense. Things were so much worse when we first left physical keyboards behind.

But like you I do love the idea of a phone with a good physical keyboard, still.


Everyone is different. I can type 10x faster on a touchscreen keyboard (on a phone). I remember being issued a Blackberry at work after iPhones had firmly established themselves and being horrified about how slowly I had to type. Keep in mind I'd had numerous Blackberries before and was generally happy with them, but coming back to having to depress a physical chiclet combined with less reliable autocorrect = endless frustration.

I don't begrudge pro-keyboard people their position, of course. It's a perfectly sensible preference (to the extent it's even my place to judge)!

This item has no comments currently.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Story Lists

j
Next story
k
Previous story
Shift+j
Last story
Shift+k
First story
o Enter
Go to story URL
c
Go to comments
u
Go to author

Navigation

Shift+t
Go to top stories
Shift+n
Go to new stories
Shift+b
Go to best stories
Shift+a
Go to Ask HN
Shift+s
Go to Show HN

Miscellaneous

?
Show this modal