The Phone-Makers Bringing Buttons Back Top Stories

We've updated our Privacy and Cookies Policy

We've made some important changes to our Privacy and Cookies Policy and we want you to know what this means for you and your data. OK Find out what's changed

Search Home News Sport Weather Shop Reel Travel

Home Video World UK Business Tech Science Stories Entertainment & Arts Health World News TV More

Technology

The phone-makers bringing buttons back Top Stories

By Zoe Kleinman Trump a 'liar, conman and cheat' - Technology reporter, BBC News Cohen

2 hours ago Share 31 minutes ago

Republicans grill 'liar' Cohen Mobile World Congress 5 hours ago

Jet downing raises India-Pakistan tension

3 hours ago

Features

India and Pakistan in 'uncharted waters'

The Pro1 has a keyboard hidden inside

How Swiss men stopped women An Android phone that slides open to reveal a physical qwerty keyboard voting until 1971 inside has launched at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The F(x)tec Pro1 phone also has a bespoke shutter button on the side to click when taking photos.

The London start-up behind it said it wanted to "return the keyboard" to consumers.

Other handsets with keyboards built in, from brands such as BlackBerry Mobile and Swiss firm Punkt, were also on show. What Trump wants from Kim talks "A lot of consumer tech still has buttons even though the tech is there to get rid of them," said Adrian Li Mow Ching, founder of F(x)tec.

"Haptic feedback never gives the same satisfaction as pressing a physical button.”

He said that the folding handsets unveiled by phone giants Huawei and Samsung demonstrated that "people want more than the single slab".

How it feels to have 'millennial burnout'

The tough challenges facing Buhari

Zoe Kleinman with the Pro1

The handset I tried was a prototype, but it ran pretty smoothly. It was chunkier than a standard smartphone and a little heavier. French frustrations boil over in angry debates While I cannot deny that the sliding keyboard was fun to open, I did fear for the hinge and the plastic stand on which the screen sits at an angle.

The keys did take a little getting used to if you are more familiar with a touchscreen pad, but I found I made fewer typos when writing.

The Pro1 will go on sale in July for £649, or $649 in the United States.

The man reporting on Africa's most secretive state

Why is the MWC tech show full of men?

F(x)tec says its apps have been optimised for landscape use

'I might have had her for a bit longer'

Elsewhere on the BBC

Lyrics quiz Have you been getting these songs wrong?

Feeling hot What happens to your body in extreme heat?

The Nokia 950 prototype inspired the Pro1 Most Read

Lianchen Chen, who designed the device, describes himself as a BlackBerry fan. Trump knew about email hack, 1 However, his device was inspired by a prototype from Nokia he was given in 2010, Cohen tells Congress which was never released to the public. Selma Blair opens up about MS: 2 The Nokia 950 had a slide-out keyboard hidden beneath the screen but was only 'People with disabilities are ever given to app developers. Mr Chen said he used it until 2015. invisible'

India Pakistan: Kashmir fighting 3 More Mobile World Congress stories: sees Indian aircraft downed

Iris-scanning phone pitched at refugees Bradford grooming: Nine jailed 4 for abusing girls Huawei Mate X smartphone folds face out 'Tiniest baby boy' ever sent Nokia 9 PureView uses five cameras to take a photo 5 home leaves Tokyo hospital The Pro1 features a full touchscreen in addition to its physical keyboard, an Shooting range criticised for approach shared by BlackBerry Mobile's Key2. 6 Shamima Begum target Punkt’s MP02 phone is also covered in buttons, but it has limited functionality compared to modern smartphones. It is designed to be a so-called companion British climber missing on 7 Pakistan's 'killer mountain' phone rather than a primary device. Labour MP Chris Williamson 8 suspended in anti-Semitism row

Momo challenge: Police advise 9 over 'freaky game'

Gangs use vacuum cleaners to 10 steal parking meter cash

Punkt's phone is a "companion" device

Punkt chief executive Petter Neby said the device would have been 75% cheaper to manufacture if it had just a touchscreen rather than physical keys. But he said physical keys gave people a more "optimal" experience.

“We press keys and buttons all the time and expect something to happen,” he told the BBC.

“The touchscreen is a convenience, it’s not optimal for a call to action.”

Both F(x)tec and Punkt deny that the hardware required for a physical keyboard limits the life of their devices.

Mr Neby says he still uses a 10-year-old BlackBerry with physical keys as his primary phone and has experienced no issues with it.

The BlackBerry Key2 sports a touchscreen and a keyboard

UK start-up Planet Computers is another company producing Android phones with physical keyboards. In 2018, it successfully crowd-funded a modernised "digital assistant" device, and is now working on a follow-up phone.

However, there is no indication that the broader mobile phone industry is planning a physical keyboard comeback.

“I am not sure if this is nostalgia or trying to find a way in the market serving those groups that the big guns have no interest in serving,” said analyst Carolina Milanesi from the consultancy Creative Strategies.

“I think this is really more what we see in a market where competing with the top players requires not just different hardware but a different approach to the market.”