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What Is Wrong With A Hardware Keyboard On These Phones?

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I ran into the following photo of the new Jolla phone with a QWERTY keyboard “other half”:

Here is the Jolla photo again:

Jolla - Keyboard other half

And here is the HTC 7 Pro running Windows Phone OS:

HTC 7 Pro

And the LG Optimus 7Q:
LG Optimus 7Q

What is the point of having a slide-out hardware keyboard when the homescreen won’t switch to landscape when you extend the keyboard? The images above tell what platforms are the culprits – Windows Phone OS and Sailfish OS.

When you slide out the keyboard while on the homescreen, this is what should happen:
Xperia Pro side-by-side ther E7


Those are the Nokia E7 (Symbian OS) and Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro (Android OS).

These other guys whose homescreens stay in portrait even when the keyboard is extended look like misfits. Your thoughts?

Mister Mobility

I started blogging about mobile in 2004 as a fun way to share my passion for gadgets and mobile services. My other interests include digital media, speaking and teaching, photography, travelling, and dancing.

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  1. My thoughts.

    At least I can say of Windows phone 8, there is a landscape mode even on my Nokia Lumia 520 (which has no keyboard) so I expect switching to landscape mode should not be a problem on these ‘QWERTIED’ (word hereby coined 🙂 ) phones when the keypad is pulled out.
    That being said, the qwertied phones have settings which toggle the landscape mode on and off. Maybe landscape mode was not switched on in the above phones?

  2. I don’t want to believe manufacturer will be launching a phone in this age and time with screen orientation remaining in portrait while you slide out the keyboard

  4. Just a note about your first image. That is not the new Jolla phone, that is a Nokia N950 which someone ran Sailfish OS on. The current version of Sailfish does not have a landscape home view, but the Jolla phone does not have a keyboard available either. I’m pretty sure landscape mode will be implemented in the end, when official or 3rd party keyboards are available.

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