After dying a painful death at the hand of the iPhone’s revolutionary capacitive touchscreen, the QWERTY smartphone is rising up from the graveyard this year.
Whether it’s nostalgia for a physical keyboard, frustration at iOS’s ever-worsening software keyboard, or just plain boredom with glass slabs, companies are rebooting QWERTY phones this year for some reason.
At CES 2026:
- Clicks, the company behind the Clicks keyboard case and the new Power Keyboard, announced plans to sell the Communicator, a “second phone” with a QWERTY keypad
- Unihertz also teased a new phone with a physical keyboard. The Titan 2 Elite seems to be a less gimmicky version of the Titan 2, which itself was a BlackBerry Passport knockoff but with a bizarre square screen on the backside.
[T]wo QWERTY phone announcements in this still very new year suggest there may be some kind of trend. Maybe after 19 years of the iPhone and touchscreens defining the mobile experience, it’s time to go back to the physical keyboard and its more tactile typing.
I played with the Chinese Zinwa Q25 last year and it sooo felt like a Blackberry. Too bad the Q25 is plagued with issues or I would have bought one.
Almost two decades later and I still miss my Blackberry keyboard.
I’m glad you mentioned the bugs. I was slowly leaning towards it but I’ve done my fair bit of… “unpaid beta testing” for one lifetime.
I miss my BlackBerry phones. The Titan range was cool but buggy as well. If they could just do a Nothing phone with a QWERTY keyboard, I would literally buy one overnight.
I’m intrigued by the Titan 2 Elite. Never owned a Blackberry myself (or never used one as my main rather) and I do type a lot on my phone so it would be an interesting experience to try the Titan. Looks quite nice as well.
I heard that Unihertz isn’t exactly the best at supporting their phones, though, and I’m not a big fan of Mediatek either. The Communicator looks good, too, but I’d rather go with a brand that has a history of making phones, rather than cases.
I’ve been rocking a Minimal Phone for about 6 or 7 months now, and man am I excited to have options for QWERTY phones again.
just plain boredom with glass slabs
This. So much this. They’re all boring, too tall, and too skinny with about as much personality as a used up dryer sheet. It’s like they’re designed solely for scrolling an endless feed of mind-numbing slop. I remember being able to actually do things on my older smartphones (RDP, SSH, editing documents/spreadsheets, etc). You can still do those things now, but you basically have to break out a bluetooth keyboard to do anything more than the most basic things and it feels like trying to look at a panorama through a keyhole.
6 🤷♂️ 7
I’ve been rocking a Minimal Phone
You managed to get one? The website says they ship in 3-5 business days. I ordered in November, and this week I canceled the order because all they’ve done so far is lie to me about ship dates. Terrible, terrible experience.
I pre-ordered last June and got it toward the end of July. It seems to ship directly from the factory in Hong Kong, so you have to use the tracking link they send you until it clears customs in your country.
I did a first impressions post about it when I got it.
I would highly suggest you and anyone else wanting a keyboard that’s actually useful to check out Unexpected Keyboard. You can write code with this thing without it being a nightmare.
These small keyboars are very bad and just really horrible when using. At least in my experience.
Yeah, small devices are always going to be awkward to type on.
still far better than touchscreens. I used a blackberry keyone for a while, and it was amazing, until I lost it on a walk in the park years ago.
I do wonder what would be more annoying though: An on-screen keyboard or a weird stubby aspect ratio that doesn’t play nice with all your other apps.
Especially when you can already get a keyboard case for a regular phone and have the best of both worlds.
Hey, finally some things that aren’t exactly the same as everything else.
Yeah this is something I need since my fingers don’t always register on touch screens.
QWERTY phones are fine and all, and they work well for English, but sometimes I type with this, and I’m sure as hell not gonna use a slow-ass QWERTY replacement.
Having to use something like Windows IME on a phone for Japanese is nightmare fuel
The Japanese ten-key on a touch screen is so good because you can swipe. It makes me cringe when people tap give times to get お like we used to on physical number pads.
God, I don’t miss that. Honestly, I wish there was an English ten-key equivalent.
Nothing stops you. The app is open-source, so you can add T9 swipe typing yourself.
iOS stops me pretty quick. But maybe I can explore a bit?
An unexpected obstacle! I kinda assumed that everyone in technology community would use an Android phone with a dark theme and a Linux emulator app.
I ended up using my phone as my main gaming console for a long time, so I’m reluctant to abandon my gaming library now. :(
On Android we have five year old games disappearing from Play Store, including games you’ve previously bought, because Google cannot be assed to support older Android versions.
I thought it autopredicted? At least that’s what the Chinese one does
I miss my Blackberry Pearl…
I fear that that design of phone layout/UI will never make a comeback.
Instead of ever-bigger screens thanks to flip open folding displays, how about the same size phone that flips open to an easily usable qwerty board?
I just want Starks phone in the first Iron Man movie (I don’t think it was ever a real product) but as a modern smart phone.
One thing has become abundantly clear: You, me, and so many others in the comments here need to be in charge of phone design and not whoever’s been doing it for the last 10 years.
Blackberry please come back.
Without AI please.
they died because they were shit. No apps.
Do software keyboards not use the QWERTY layout? Why are we calling hardware keyboards on a phone a QWERTY phone?!
Because there still are 12-button numerical keyboard phones with T9 text input.
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The use of that kind of device is sort of over no? I was resistant with my Blackberry for a long time, but “phones” have changed from typing to passive input.
The reason I’m a Clicks convert isn’t the typing. I only use the keyboard for that half the time. The reason is it opens up keyboard shortcuts which make the ordinarily horrible experience of doing anything on a smartphone much better.
omfg yes please I would actually buy a brand new phone again for that
I fucking hate entirely touchscreen stuff. using a sheets app on a touchscreen phone takes 10x as long as it should
You can find bluetooth keyboards that work just fine on a phone. The hard part is finding a good small one.
not very convenient to use in a grocery store, though
Why are you typing anything in a grocery store? Type in the kitchen when you need to add something to the list, but in the store it should be just checking off the items as you put them in the cart. Maybe you have a good reason, but it feels like you are solving the wrong problem. [insert long rant about usability and human-machine interaction]
If you really need a keyboards I agree bluetooth keyboards are chunky. I often use a 60% keyboard with my phone, but it is a lot larger than my fine despite being a small keyboard. There is no getting around the size of hands though, you can’t make a good tiny keyboard (even a 40% won’t fit in your pocket).
Why are you typing anything in a grocery store
Because my wife is serially texting me additional things and þey aren’t all at þe same store so I need to get þem into þe shopping list app?
Because someþing I saw reminded me of someþing I need to do and I need to write it down or I’ll forget?
Because I want to price compare something against what I can get it for online or from anoþer store?
Because I run into someone and need to create a new contact wiþ þeir information?
Why aren’t you typing þings at þev store?
because we have a spreadsheet for group trips and I’m checking off the items I bought
why would I want to do that on a separate list and then transfer that information to the spreadsheet afterwards, when I could just do it directly?
The Titan 2 Elite seems to be a less gimmicky version of the Titan 2
They just had to announce it after I ordered the one with all the “bizarre” gimmicks.
Don’t feel bad or at least don’t feel alone. Such is generally my luck too.
God i hope so
