Is it strange, or a sign of the current market that the first phone to draw my attention is one that draws heavy inspiration, to the point you could call it a homage, to a phone that was released 11 years ago?
It doesn’t take much guessing to realise this looks very similar to the Blackberry Passport. The Blackberry didn’t capture my attention at the time (It’s launch price of £529, and lack of carriers stocking it might have had something to do with that), but a revival of it at less than half that price certainly did.
I currently have a Oneplus 13 that I use as my only phone, and for the most part I’m very happy with it. It has phenomenal cameras, it has random quirks that I love such as the alert slider and IR blaster, it has the most powerful mobile chipset currently on the market, it charges at over 100w and has a 6000mah silicone carbide battery. What would I possibly be interested in a phone with budget/midrange specs and a 1:1 aspect ratio screen? Two words; physical keyboard.
I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated by virtual keyboards, for a time they seemed like they were doing great. Two notable phones I remember were my iPhone 6s and my Samsung Note 9. Both had excellent typing accuracy and haptic feedback, the experience was good enough that I didn’t notice it. Since then it’s been downhill. The iPhone 16e I had made me an awful typist, I’m not sure of the technical term, but the “hit boxes” for each letter seemed to change frequently, meaning any developed muscle memory was rendered useless. The autocorrect was also comically bad. The Oneplus 13 is a similar scenario. It uses GBoard and I’m having an awful experience using it. It makes me feel like I can’t spell. I do have large thumbs, but this is a large screen and I’ve managed to type accurately on smaller screens than this in the past. I’m not sure what’s going on, whether it’s “improvements” to the apps or some sort of machine learning going on but it’s borderline infuriating. To the point I actively avoid having to type anything on my phone. If it can possibly wait until I have the chance to type on a physical keyboard I will delay it. Even trying to accurately type URL’s is a nightmare, as autocorrect starts changing words and adding punctuation where it shouldn’t be. Typing on a flat piece of glass is fundamentally flawed. In my opinion it is inferior in every way to even the worst physical keyboard.
This frustration has grown to the point that when I saw this device announced on kickstarter I knew I had to try it. I’m willing to ignore the 60hz refresh rate, the chunky dimensions, the questionable manufacturer (Unihertz are Chinese based and have a poor history of not updating their launched devices), the big Unihertz metal logo on the front and the gimmick of the second screen on the back, purely because no-one else is making devices like this. The other options in 2025 are the “minimalist phone” which has a e-ink screen and plenty of other drawbacks, a small group of Chinese hobbyists retrofitting a new motherboard into a Blackberry classic or getting a “Clicks” keyboard and one of their supported devices. This really is slim pickings.
A glimmer of hope for physical keyboard lovers is that this kickstarter campaign has generated quite a buzz. The campaign received 7019 backers, and ended with a total of $16,358,594 pledged (HK$ convert to £1,569,525.30). The goal was just $785,000 or £75,316.82. There has also been a lot of chatter about this online.
I’m hoping that this device becomes such a resounding success that other manufacturers see they’re missing out on a market segment and start to offer alternatives. If nothing else, a market flooded with near identical slabs of glass is just dull and needs some variety.
We’re currently being told we’ll begin receiving our devices at some point in October, I’m excited to get my hands on it.
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