New phone arrived this morning, a year after ordering (yay, indiegogo). It's a lovely jewel of a thing, and the keyboard feels excellent.
Bastard thing's got a cracked outside screen cover, so I'm guessing I'm going to have to send it back, to a company that's in the throes of shipping and unlikely to be very responsive, but I've contacted them.
Arse. I was really looking forward to this.
It doesn't look user-replaceable, and as it's a 'perk' not a purchase, I don't know where I stand.
Whinging here rather on their forum because their forum is full of the most insufferable pricks.
The Cosmo Communicator? I dunno I think PDAs have had their day. What kind of clerical work are you realisticly going to get done efficiently and comfortably on something the size of a smartphone?
That's probably why you didn't buy one, and I did.
I've had Nokia Communicators, teeny tiny laptops, the Gemini and now this. It's hardly a PDA, it's a computer with a small but tolerable keyboard. I really don't like touchscreens for text entry, and this is something I can easily pocket, and which has a decent battery life so it'll probably work when I want to use it.
As for 'why' - it's a fine email machine, and fine for hammering out words for code or documents. I still tend to go back to a real machine for editing, but for getting the first cut of things, if I can't be arsed to fire up a laptop or find somewhere to perch it, it works nicely. I played with various OSes on the Gemini, but lacklustre support for the Mediatek means I ended up back on Android. I'll try again on the Cosmo.
That is basically what I meant, joking aside. I only have personal projects to faff about with but have still often wanted a 'proper' keyboard for this sort of thing. Even just for emailing in the field in my real job, though personally I prefer a good software keyboard over an "okay" mini keyboard. A thumb board is preferable to both, something in the XDA format would be genuinely useful for my work, but a the clamshell of this or the Gemini or the GPD Pocket are just not ideal for the outdoor-ish work I find myself doing, and modern smartphones are still pretty excellent at typing while standing up, walking etc, but lack the ability to run weird old proprietary software I use, and they don't play well with our VLAN either.
Yeah, the clamshells aren't good for standing use.
It's stunning that blackberry managed to shit the bed so comprehensively. They had the best thumboards, good screens, a decent understanding of power and security. I loved the thumbwheel thingy, that's a fine navigation tool, fast and accurate.
