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2006 was the year of the QWERTY smartphone, will Nokia continue this trend?

Categories: Devices
By: , IntoMobile
Wednesday, December 27th, 2006 at 5:39 PM

I have an idea for a complex hinge mechanism that I think it might work.

It’s a combination of the Nokia E70 and a typical slider phone. Imagine in your mind for a moment the Nokia E70:

Nokia_e70

See how it looks like when it’s open? Why not create a design where the screen now slides up, and the two pieces of the keyboard slide together. It will be a complex engineering task, but if anyone can do it Nokia can. Back to the article at hand, Matthew Miller has a comprehensive list of every phone that came out this year with a QWERTY keyboard. It’s stunning:

QWERTY devices seemed to roll out with a bang after the Motorola Q opened the floodgates. The models include the following devices:

  • The Nokia E61 and eventually the Nokia E62 from Cingular in the U.S.
  • The HTC TyTN Phone Edition device that leads the pack for the larger devices with a QWERTY keyboard
  • The most powerful Palm OS-based smartphone, the Treo 700p
  • The Palm Windows Mobile upgraded Treo 700wx from Sprint
  • The Nokia E70-2 that used a unique flip over keyboard solution
  • The GSM version Treo 750v currently only available in Europe from Vodafone
  • The Sony Ericsson P990 that suffers from software issues
  • The HP 6900 series Phone Edition device with a GPS radio
  • The Treo 680 that added colors and a slightly new design to the Palm OS Treo
  • The Samsung SGH-i320 that brought a super slim form factor to compete with the Q
  • My current favorite device, the T-Mobile Dash
  • The recently released Samsung Blackjack (SGH-i600) that adds a 3G radio to the i320 design

Source: Mobile Gadgeteer

About The Author

Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.

  • geek

    What’s wrong with the e70 form? I had the 6680 (the original “winged” phone) and it worked quite well. I wouldn’t trade a single flip for 2 sliders. It really just sounds like something else to break…

  • Stefan Constantinescu

    nothing is wrong with anything, i’m asking nokia to try something new.

    nothing was wrong with the candy bars from a decade ago, the “winged” design was a calculated risk. well i want nokia to take yet another calculated risk