Next Droid qwerty slider?

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Originally Posted by CPAaz

I agree but I am giving up on the Droid 5 and am getting the Maxx HD Thursday. Time to learn how to use a virtual keyboard.

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I made the switch from a D2G to an HD Maxx and I still miss my qwety slider, but so far a virtual keyboard isnt as bad as I thought. Maybe I have big fingers, but my gf's iPhone 4 and iPhone 5 are horrible to type on. Even with me being adjusted to a virtual keyboard, I still cant use the iPhone 5 in landscape mode. Now, the Maxx HD is another story. I was able to use it pretty easily as soon as I picked it up for the first time.

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Originally Posted by victoriak68

You should hold off until the BlackBerry 10 series comes out. The keyboards, both physical and touch, are going to be the best on the market. Also, BlackBerry 10 will support Android apps. Even now BlackBerry still has the best keyboard (both physical and touch), its just that BlackBerry doesn't have enough apps and their phones are currently too slow to be desirable. From what I've been reading, BlackBerry10 will change all that.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

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The keyboards will be the best? I doubt it, but time will tell. To me the physical qwerty keys appear to be to small for me. I tried a BB style phone a few years back and it was impossible to use.

I agree with you Explorer. I thought virtual would be torture but it hasn't been that bad. I do miss having more of a screen visible while typing but I will get over it. I really like the Maxx HD.

Well, I put my money where my mouth is and upgraded to a Strat2. It hasn't shown up yet, but after demoing it at the Verizon store, I can't imagine being disappointed. I've used a virtual keyboard since the iPhone 3G (and Droid1 and Strat1), and the only one I've ever liked is my 10" Touchpad in landscape mode running the Jellybean keyboard. I find it really telling/pathetic how little attention/marketing the Strat2 has received considering that it is basically a VZ Galaxy SIII with a little smaller display, 15% slower CPU, 1/2 the RAM, but with a physical keyboard. It has pretty much all the other features of the SIII. And as far as half the RAM goes, I'm really not sure what the point of more than 1GB RAM in Android would be anyway.

As a VZ qwerty user that requires a microSD slot and removable battery, I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm pretty much relegated to no ASOP even in the aftermarket community. I'm basically left just hoping that the StratII gets rooted at all. I never would have guessed that at 32 I'd be an old fart. :)

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Originally Posted by JoeFresco

Well, I put my money where my mouth is and upgraded to a Strat2. It hasn't shown up yet, but after demoing it at the Verizon store, I can't imagine being disappointed. I've used a virtual keyboard since the iPhone 3G (and Droid1 and Strat1), and the only one I've ever liked is my 10" Touchpad in landscape mode running the Jellybean keyboard. I find it really telling/pathetic how little attention/marketing the Strat2 has received considering that it is basically a VZ Galaxy SIII with a little smaller display, 15% slower CPU, 1/2 the RAM, but with a physical keyboard. It has pretty much all the other features of the SIII. And as far as half the RAM goes, I'm really not sure what the point of more than 1GB RAM in Android would be anyway.

As a VZ qwerty user that requires a microSD slot and removable battery, I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm pretty much relegated to no ASOP even in the aftermarket community. I'm basically left just hoping that the StratII gets rooted at all. I never would have guessed that at 32 I'd be an old fart. :)

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Beyond the processors (both the Snapdragon S4 and Adreno 225), the Stratosphere II is more of a Galaxy SII with a physical keyboard than it is a Galaxy SIII, just like the original Stratosphere was pretty much a Galaxy S with a keyboard. The screen resolution, RAM, camera (which is actually the Galaxy S camera), and battery size are all closer to the S2. For some reason, Samsung is keeping the Stratosphere line about a year behind the Galaxy line on many fronts. Maybe they don't feel there's much of a demand for them, so they're trying to use some leftover components and repackage them into something new. That's probably why it doesn't get much attention - it has a physical keyboard (which isn't popular in marketing these days) and it's running specs that are approaching two years old.

That's certainly not intended as a knock on the Stratosphere II in the slightest, because with that processor it's a more than capable phone. From a computing standpoint, it's right there on par with the RAZR HD and MAXX HD. But it's more of a realization where the focus on mobile devices is, and regrettably it's not on physical keyboards. To this day, the Droid Pro is my second favorite smartphone ever (behind the Note 2), because that Blackberry-style keyboard is nothing short of amazing. If they were to release an updated Droid Pro with cutting edge specs and a slightly larger size (both for the screen and keyboard), I'd have to seriously consider picking one up.

And once you use an Android phone with 2GB of RAM as your main device for awhile, you'll see what the point in it is. :biggrin:

I guess from my perspective, the screen quality in my Stratosphere 1 is great. I don't need higher resolution than that. And I'm not sure I'd want a bigger size screen, either. What I do want is more battery life and the Snapdragon S4 and more RAM (I think I would be fine with 768 MB, actually -- 512 MB is just too small -- apps, especially my launcher, are always swapping out of RAM). I also want Bluetooth 4, NFC, video out, and USB 3 high current for faster charging / charging while navigating (the latter not existing in any phone I know about).

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Originally Posted by bsweetness

And once you use an Android phone with 2GB of RAM as your main device for awhile, you'll see what the point in it is. :biggrin:

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That wasn't very helpful. Care to elaborate? Is it just about games?

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Originally Posted by JoeFresco

That wasn't very helpful. Care to elaborate? Is it just about games?

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You notice it in regular day to day use. That's why I said that once you use one as your main device for awhile, you'll see the difference. I don't play many games that would require a large amount of RAM, so I can't speak to that, but having owned a lot of different smartphones, I can tell you that there's a discernible difference in regular use. A lot of that comes from the fact that the phone doesn't get bogged down as quickly because the RAM can handle a larger workload. Before I got the Galaxy SIII, I didn't think 2GB of RAM would make much of a difference for my uses. But after a week with the phone, I had to eat crow and admit that I was completely wrong.

It's just one of those things that at this point, with the way Android operates and with the current requirements for most apps, it's difficult to nail down a lot of specifics about where you see the difference. It's just something you notice in overall use, just like a slightly faster processor is something you'll often notice in overall use. The ability to perform various functions and for everything to run smoothly is increased, and it's something that becomes quite obvious with use. I think in the near future, 2GB of RAM will start becoming even more useful as Android and various apps evolve. If it wasn't, Google wouldn't have bothered to have LG use 2GB of RAM in the Nexus 4 (especially since they were needing to keep costs down to sell it so cheaply). Then people will probably be able to point out more specific things. But for right now, it just gives a noticeable overall performance boost.

I really hope they make a droid 5. I've only had virtual keyboards. And never really had the desire to get a phone with a slide out but the other day I dropped my droid razr maxx and cracked the screen. As a replacement I got a droid 4. And I absolutely love this phone. I couldn't see going back to a virtual keyboard. I type a hell of a lot faster. I'm also WAY more accurate.

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Originally Posted by crash26

I really hope they make a droid 5. I've only had virtual keyboards. And never really had the desire to get a phone with a slide out but the other day I dropped my droid razr maxx and cracked the screen. As a replacement I got a droid 4. And I absolutely love this phone. I couldn't see going back to a virtual keyboard. I type a hell of a lot faster. I'm also WAY more accurate.

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I really hope they keep making physical keyboards..

I feel like all the QWERTY phoned are just getting last years specs. Why can't they make a phone like the DROID DNA but with a QWERTY keyboard. All I really want is something new and exciting, but at the rate QWERTY phones have been coming out I'll be excited for just about anything at this point. I just had to get that off my chest.