Mobience smallQWERTY keyboard saves the lives of touchscreen detesters
Have any idea what a SureType keypad would look like if it were removed from a BlackBerry and (barely) enlarged? We're guessing it'd look a little something like this. Designed by Mobience, the smallQWERTY keyboard is meant to give you a more tactile option when it comes to texting or inputting characters into your phone, MID, UMPC or pretty much any other handheld device. There's no mention of a price, and we're not told exactly how long it'll take to master this thing, but we're bubbling over just thinking of the fun we could have from hacking into the text input fields of nearby devices with this. Shh... you didn't hear that from us.























Why are the letters in that stupid arrangement?
@Astrobiology waving goodbye
Because they think like this http://image2.aving.net/2010/01/28/20100128130457250.JPG
@Astrobiology waving goodbye
It took me a while to figure out what that arrangement even was. It is QWERTY, but in alphabetical order. WHY they would do that is a whole different ballgame.
@Astrobiology waving goodbye - hey I hadn't noticed that. What is up with that layout? When I saw it I just presumed it was alphabetical, which still would make this thing seem pretty stupid IMHO. EWQTUY?
@MoonWalkerCTE
statistics? BS
i would still type faster on a regular 3x4 keypad
@Gib actually not alphabetical order. it is the most commonly used order... which is more annoying to figure out than alphabetical, QWERTY, or T9 for that matter.
@Astrobiology waving goodbye
they put the common letters first on each button...
@Astrobiology waving goodby Where is the "R" ?
@Astrobiology waving goodbye found it. That is an odd place for it. I don't get this at all.
@MoonWalkerCTE Wow that graphic is epic, "Statistics equal Efficiency!" LMAO
@Astrobiology waving goodbye
why would someone arrange the letters like that?? It makes no sense to me- but it sure was good for a laugh!
@Astrobiology waving goodbye : Because you didn't read the article?
@One Love There is no mention of why the keys are out of order. I read the article and the one on gizmodo about this earlier.
Fair enough, It's a blend of statical efficiency and qwerty familiarity. :)
@One Love : statical != statistical
@One Love
So why is engadget still calling it a qwerty keyboard when it clearly isn't. STOP SCREWING WITH ME ENGADGET! Now I feel better.
@One Love
It actually doesn't say what's with the stupid letter layout. Did you look at the picture? It doesn't go 1, 2 abc, 3 def, etc. or qwe, rty, etc. like any other numeric keypad or keyboard.
Yeah thanks, no.
If you want to use a phone with a keyboard BUY A PHONE WITH A KEYBOARD.
Theres only a few phones without keyboards and other many missing features; use a device and operating system that supports what you need instead of trying to conform around a hideous device and OS.
That keyboard is plenty big enough to have a proper key for each letter.
@Dr Spaceman That's true... if you're human. This device was clearly designed with one individual in mind: Donkey Kong.
I'd rather just have an external phone keyboard, multi-tap or qwerty...just not that EQRTWY monstrosity
Why are the comments collapsed again?
@rhcpsfan because they had one comment with 121 replies and you cant see anything for 3 pages beyond... APPLE SUX wahhh
@rhcpsfan maybe because every troll that wants its comment to be shown on the first page but isn't quick enough to be the first to comment now just replies to the first comment.
It's really annoying when most of the replies don't have anything to do with the comment they are replying to. I think collapsed replies are better.
It would be nice if there was a way you could choose whether you wanted the collapsed or expanded view by default.
sorry this is not a small qwerty keyboard, it's a keypad at best and i think i read: EWQTUY.. trying to imagine me typing on it... does not compute... *head explodes*
By any chance, does anyone know the model of that UMPC?
@LAY
Thats the Viliv X70. Could have been perfect if not for the intel graphics. If its a Tegra 2 ill get one.
@royco Nothing wrong with GMA 500, mine plays does 720p without a problem. You just need the proper codecs.
reminds me of the frogpad
http://www.frogpad.com
@jbgadget
yep, I own three of those FrogPads and use them daily. The best mobile keyboard on earth. Allows you to touch type!! with a single hand, easy to learn, replaces a full QWERTY keyboard and I type with more than 70WPM.
The smallQWERTY keyboard does not only require two hands, but also is much slower than an On Screen Keyboard.
On screen Keyboards are slow, the same with handwriting recognition (whereas they're probably still faster than the smallQWERTY keyboard), so if you want a fast typing small portable keyboard you'll have to leave the QWERTY crap and get something totally new, something like a FrogPad.
(As you see, I'm a thrilled FrogPad user, it's sad that no mobile device, like a sliding slate tablet or a smart phone uses a FrogPad)
Where's the R?
@Kila
Ah there it is. The title saying this is a QWERTY keyboard fooled me.
Windows XP? That's so last decade!
@sodaboy581 They ship with Win7 now.
"Neo...this is Morpheus."
"The fack?!"
"Sorry, wrong pc ^_^"
Actually, I think I might actually use this thing if I had a phone without a keyboard. But I don't. I just have a regular keypad phone.
Yes, let's buy a touchscreen unit and not use it.
Ya know, come to think of it, if you took the QWERTY keyboard off a smartphone, and made it into a Bluetooth keyboard, it'd actually work pretty well for a tablet when you wanted a solid keyboard. Hell, you might even be able to hollow out a little spot in the body of the tablet for it much like you do with remotes and such in the Express Card slots on laptops.
I think that's actually not a bad idea. A full keyboard is my fastest form of text input, but my thumbs and a real QWERTY are still faster then all of my fingers on a touch screen QWERTY on a tablet and I'm not sure that'll ever change.
@kenny goo i use my off brand ps3 keyboard for just that, it makes an awesome portable keyboard.
neat but if your going to make a pad that big you might as well stick a full qwerty in it, i think my PS3 and my HTC touch keyboards are about the same size as that one and still have a full qwerty.
just make apple bluetooth keyboard and android's bluetooth stack play nice w/ each other.
case closed.
I'd prefer if they had that but with the regular phone keypad. My girlfriend hates touch and this would be my way to get her hooked on android.
I would be impressed if it had an accelerometer and morphed into a normal keyboard layout when turned sideways.
I would buy one of these. looks cool to me.
If you're going to make a large wireless key pad, you might as well do the full qwerty.
What happened to the credit-card-sized QWERTY bluetooth keyboard that LG showed off about 6 months ago?
They should add an optical mouse feature to the back side of this that would make it work like magic mouse when its laying on a flat surface in portrait mode and then switch to qwerty when picked up and in landscape mode. Has anyone ever made a mouse/keyboard hybrid like before? this would be really useful for me since i browse from my couch on my TV.
I wish he was typing "good eve-en-ing lay-dees and gen-tle-men".
This has got to be one of the stupidest ideas I have seen in awhile. Maybe the company's intent is market the device at an outlandish price and then mark it down a minimum of 50% and sell it in bargain bins at the front of Fry's Electronics. I guess that is one way to market your products.