A new Samsung Android phone equipped with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard landed on the net today and it looks like it’s headed for AT&T. With no name to speak of yet, we’re going to have to wait a little longer for more information but the render above looks pretty nice.
The thickness of the Samsung slider certainly makes us hope this isn’t a Galaxy S 2 Pro, as one of the best features about the keyboard-less GS2 is its thinness. While the Epic 4G turned out to be a chunky handset, we can only hope that when or if Samsung does introduce a QWERTY packing Galaxy S 2 that it won’t sacrifice too much of its thin exterior.
Mimicking the Epic 4G’s keyboard by throwing the four Android buttons on the sides of the keyboard, hopefully the typing experience is better than Sprint’s Galaxy S handset. Still, we rather like the idea of having the buttons on the sides, as long as it doesn’t hinder the actual keyboard itself. If this actually does turn out to be the Galaxy S 2 with a keyboard, we wish Samsung would have kept the dedicated number row found on the Epic 4G.
Like the original Galaxy S devices in the US, this nameless handset also sports the four Android buttons below the display instead of the three button setup found on versions in other countries. While I don’t mind a dedicated home key, I’d take a dedicated search key over it any day of the week, so I’m happy to see the change-up.
Said to be on its way in the coming months, we can expect the handset to at least support AT&T’s HSPA+ network, if not its soon to be launched LTE network.
In a perfect world, I’d really like to see Samsung ship both a QWERTY-equipped and QWERTY-less Galaxy S 2 on all four carriers this year but that’s just wishful thinking.
[Via: BGR]