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For the previous month, I’ve been utilizing the Unihertz Titan Pocket, a cellphone launched in 2021 that rocks a 3.1-inch show above a full Qwerty keyboard. To be clear, it’s been by alternative — my editors didn’t assign me to do that as a prank (in reality, a few of them have clowned on me for utilizing it), and it’s not like I don’t produce other choices. I’ve acquired a wonderfully good iPhone 12 Mini that I actively gave as much as change to this cellphone.

The primary motive is that it might simply be type of enjoyable to attempt one thing new. Or, on this case, return to one thing outdated; my first experiences with a smartphone had been stealing my dad’s Navy-issued BlackBerry to electronic mail my vital different once I was in center college. However for the previous 10 years or so, the telephones I’ve used have just about had the very same kind issue. They’ve simply modified measurement.

That’s additionally largely true for everybody else. I don’t assume I’ve ever gotten as many feedback on a gadget as I’ve the Titan Pocket. I’ve gotten a number of “is {that a} BlackBerry?” or “whoa, cool, what cellphone is that” feedback, and I feel that’s largely all the way down to the truth that folks simply aren’t used to seeing somebody use this form of cellphone anymore. (Although there are dozens of us! Somebody who goes to my fitness center additionally has a Titan Pocket, which shocked me; I by no means anticipated to see one other one within the wild.)

Nonetheless, the principle motive I made a decision to modify to this cellphone is definitely due to its important promoting level: the keyboard. I’m going to be disappearing into the wilderness for a number of months to hike the Pacific Crest Path, and through that point, my important type of contact with the parents again house can be by means of lengthy emails despatched each week or two. I received’t be dashing off texts each hour like I usually do, which marks a reasonably elementary change to how I talk. So why not pair that with a elementary change in my communication machine?

This cellphone feels prefer it was made for writing. The keyboard is tactile — clearly, you’re urgent down on actual keys — and features a bevy of perform keys throughout the highest that add one other layer to the expertise. In fact, there are shift and alt keys for accessing capital letters and a few symbols, however there are additionally two programmable keys as properly. I take advantage of the image key for its meant function, popping up a digital keyboard that lets me enter characters that aren’t on the {hardware} one. The Fn key, nonetheless, I’ve configured to behave mainly like a management key.

Sure, which means I can entry all of my favourite desktop keyboard shortcuts on my cellphone. Want to pick all? Perform-A. Wish to search a web page? Perform-F. Undo? Yup, I can try this, too. I may even hit Perform-L in Chrome to leap to the deal with bar and instantly begin typing within the web site I need to go to.

The utility of getting a keyboard connected to your cellphone goes past the in-app or typing expertise, too. Once I have to launch an app on iOS, I swipe to get to the homescreen, pull all the way down to open Highlight, and begin typing its identify, tapping on its icon when it reveals up. On the Titan Pocket, I double-tap the house button (if I’m not already on the launcher) and simply begin typing. As soon as I put within the app’s identify, or sufficient of it to get it to be the primary search consequence, I mash the enter key and it launches.

Unihertz additionally has a system that allows you to set keys as shortcuts for apps and actions. For instance, regardless of the place I’m on my cellphone, I can long-press the “t” key to start out a brand new timer or the “c” key to open Chrome. It seems that having further buttons may be tremendous helpful if you wish to get issues completed rapidly

This cellphone has quite a bit going for it past the keyboard. For one, it has options that my iPhone 12 Mini, which price a full $479 greater than it, doesn’t. You understand how everybody complains about how telephones don’t have headphone jacks or microSD card slots anymore? The Titan Pocket does. These are going to be very helpful for me whereas I’m trying to hike throughout the US for causes that I defined to my colleague David Pierce on an episode of The Vergecast.

It additionally has an IR blaster that I can use to regulate my TV and oscillating fan, and if I plug some wired headphones in, I can use it as an FM radio. Plus, there’s an additional {hardware} button which you can program to do three separate actions based mostly on whether or not you single-, double-, or long-press it. Why has the market determined that there shouldn’t be any flagship telephones which have these options when so many price range handsets do?

Additionally: please have a look at this battery chart after which do not forget that this can be a cellphone that’s roughly the identical measurement as an iPhone Mini. (Admittedly, it’s a good bit thicker, but it surely’s simply as straightforward to carry, for my part.)

Now, I’m not attempting to say that this cellphone is ideal as a result of it’s completely not. Listed below are a few of my complaints, in no explicit order:

• The vibration motor feels prefer it might’ve come from a low-end cellphone in 2012.
• Its MediaTek Helio P70 processor was midrange when it launched in 2019 — and boy is its age noticeable.
• It doesn’t assist 5G or eSIMs.
• It’s caught on Android 11, possible without end, and the safety patch on it’s from September 2022. (Don’t hack me, pls.)
• The digital camera is so unhealthy I’d be higher off simply writing out an outline of what I’m taking a look at somewhat than taking an image of it.
• I might give something for this cellphone to have an precise BlackBerry-style trackpad or rollerball as a result of manipulating a cursor on a display screen this small is hell.
• Regardless of its 6GB of RAM, I nonetheless really feel like apps get kicked out of reminiscence quite a bit.
• The touchscreen is okay, however lots of apps aren’t constructed to run on a sq. display screen. I’ve to place it in a goofy letterbox mode (which is, to be truthful, very cleverly inbuilt) to view Instagram Tales, for instance.
• The leather-based holster for it’s offered out, making it very tough for me to totally full my transformation into my dad.

Additionally, there’s this astoundingly annoying bug the place issues simply type of break if the very first thing I kind right into a textual content field is a quantity or image. (At the very least it does if I take advantage of the keyboard to kind it; the on-screen keyboard doesn’t have that drawback, however some fields appear to dam it from developing.) That’s tremendous annoying if I’m attempting to, say, kind in a ZIP code or reply to one thing with an emoticon.

And yeah, okay, now that I have a look at it, that’s a reasonably lengthy listing of complaints. And there are additionally some goal factors you would make towards the Titan Pocket for being a great writing machine. I truly kind sooner on the iPhone than the Titan (59 phrases per minute versus 50), and the bodily keyboard will get crushed even worse if I’ve to do one thing like add a particular character that’s not one of many ones accessible by way of the alt key — the greenback signal is a typical offender, as is the semicolon. Plus, this display screen merely can’t present that a lot textual content directly, that means I’ve to do lots of scrolling once I’m studying again by means of one thing to verify that it is smart. 

However once I’m simply utilizing the cellphone to textual content a buddy, write a observe, or bang out an extended electronic mail or weblog publish, all of these issues largely simply soften away. It’s a tactile expertise that my iPhone simply can’t contact, and with the ability to change between apps, copying and pasting textual content with out ever touching the display screen makes me really feel like a productiveness deity. Positive, I could also be slower at typing, however my mind has at all times been the roadblock to my writing velocity, not my fingers. I can nonetheless kind as quick as I can kind coherent ideas.

This can be all in my head, however utilizing the Pocket places me within the temper for writing and lets me concentrate on what I’m doing in a approach that different telephones simply don’t. I’m not tempted to only change away from a draft and watch a YouTube video as a result of, truthfully, watching YouTube on this factor sucks! My spouse has made enjoyable of me due to how shut I’ve to carry the cellphone to my face once I do watch movies on it.

And yeah, it’s completely truthful to criticize the Titan Pocket for these shortcomings (although, actually, they’re largely inherent to all keyboard telephones, as Steve Jobs identified whereas asserting the iPhone). However in some methods, they’re a part of why I like this cellphone a lot. As somebody who’s spent just about my complete life hooked on the web, I recognize the tiny second of hesitation I’ve earlier than choosing up my cellphone, and it’s not terribly usable one-handed, so I’ve to decide to it once I do determine to make use of it.

I’m completely not attempting to argue that telephones usually needs to be rather less handy so that folks use them much less. I’m simply saying that I’m completely happy mine is. And sure, I like that something I do with it looks like severe enterprise, even when I’m simply typing out foolish jokes to associates and colleagues. It’s exhausting to think about one other cellphone that has essentially modified how I take into consideration what precisely I take advantage of a cellphone for. And positive, once I return to society, I’ll in all probability return to my iPhone. However I hope that not less than a few of my BlackBerry habits stick round.

Pictures by Mitchell Clark / The Verge