re: BlackBerry Mercury rolls out today

That's not very smart since now we have flagship killers like OnePlus, ZTE, and Huawei. My phone cost 150 bucks less and has better specs.

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Maybe 10 people in the world want to give up screen real estate for a shitty keyb

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It doesn't even matter if it's shitty. It's still dumb.

I understand your concerns about the price but you have to take a few things into consideration when comparing price. This is a niche (very small one) device. Usually niche products aren't cheap. Another thing to consider when comparing against similar spec'd phones is the addition hardware on the BlackBerry. Slab phones are cheaper to manufacture (no keyboard) and the fact that this phone will probably be a short manufacturing run means they need to make more $$$ per device to cover costs.

It's not for everyone, in fact it's not for the vast majority of people out there but that won't stop me from picking one up. I'm curious how long it will take me to adapt to Android.

So, what can you do on a virtual keyboard that you can't on a physical? I'm sure you're faster on a vkb and can hide it when not in use. What else? I haven’t used a vkb since the iPhone 4s so I'm probably missing out.

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swipe for one.

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swiping on a pkb

What else?

lol that's completely retarded. you seriously arguing for the manufacturing costs to add a SECOND physical keyboard when they just showed the user doing with the on-screen keyboard first?

Well, some people prefer a physical keyboard. You daily a manual transmission don't you? I do as well. Wouldn't you agree the manual is outdated and modern day automatics and dual clutches kick it's arse? But it's still fun to drive stick.

You said you can swipe on a vkb. I showed you a video that swipes on a vkb and pkb, but that's retarded right? Side stepping that you were wrong in your swiping assumption. You may not want to do it on a pkb but the technology exists.

So, what else am I'm missing out on?

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You said you can swipe on a vkb. I showed you a video that swipes on a vkb and pkb, but that's retarded right? Side stepping that you were wrong in your swiping assumption. You may not want to do it on a pkb but the technology exists.

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its dumb and even with that ad of a video it looks clunky as hell to try to mimic a technology that wasn't designed for physical keyboards. you and i both know it won't work for shite.

also there are lots of tricks with swiping (looping over a letter to 'type' it twice, flowing off the keyboard to make the word ALL CAPS, etc etc) that will never happen with that hardware keyboard

you also failed to defend the costs incurred with a redundant keyboard that has to be grafted onto a nice piece of technology and the weight and thickness factor to support the typewriter.

i mean, do you use a typewriter?


your stick argument is invalid because no pro racer uses an auto transmission. however, no pro users of phones request hardware keyboards.

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So, you got me on all caps. What else am I missing?

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- looping over letters
- flowing over spacebar between words to avoid picking your hand off the keyboard
- starting from the cap first to capitalize first letter of word you're picking
- swipe over del button then scroll all the way left to erase the entire message you're writing
- starting from the #123 key to quickly select any symbol or number without having to hunt for it
- drag any word off the suggestion list to remove it permanently from the suggested words (very handy)

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Drag racers use autos all of the time. What about dual clutch? You ever heard of Formula 1? And what about the manual transmission, ever heard of NASCAR? These guys aren't pros?

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my point is a manual transmission is still very much a legitimate thing. physical keyboards not so much.

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Pretty sure Eric Schmidt former CEO of Google is a pkb fan and was a heavy BlackBerry user. He's not a pro user?

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i was a heavy typewriter user back in high school. what is your point here?

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- looping over letters

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Don't know if you can do this with swipe on pkb or not. Never tried it.

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- flowing over spacebar between words to avoid picking your hand off the keyboard

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Isn't that swipe? Didn't I already show you that?

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- starting from the cap first to capitalize first letter of word you're picking

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Not sure what you're saying. Press on character with pkb and it's capitalized. No additional keystroke needed.

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- swipe over del button then scroll all the way left to erase the entire message you're writing

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Two finger swipe on pkb does the same thing.

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starting from the #123 key to quickly select any symbol or number without having to hunt for it

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All numbers are on the keyboard, all symbols swipe down and they appear with corresponding keyboard keys. Never have to take your hands off the keyboard.

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drag any word off the suggestion list to remove it permanently from the suggested words (very handy)

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So no intelligent suggestions? BlackBerry learns my phrases and autoloads them for me, ready to flick into place. There are many times I never have to type an email response. I just flick the entire response into place.

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my point is a manual transmission is still very much a legitimate thing. physical keyboards not so much.

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You said autos were not used in professional racing. I proved you wrong once again. Now you're coming with this? Manuals are antiquated technology that are still used by pros, although a small niche. Just like the pkb. Most pros are using a dual clutch just like most people are using vkb's.

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i was a heavy typewriter user back in high school. what is your point here?

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My point is the head of Google was still using a pkb way past their "relevance." He was even using a BlackBerry way after Android has surpassed what BlackBery could offer. That's my point.