Can someone test the keyboard or point me to a proper review of it?

This phone to me is all about the keyboard, I have already accepted that keyboard aside it's an ok Android phone. I could find faster Android phones, or ones with better battery life, or thinner ones. If I buy this it's for the keyboard.

But the reviews I've seen are crap, where they spend MAYBE a paragraph on the keyboard itself. They seem to spend longer talking about the keyboard "auto-complete" gestures than the keyboard itself. I want a hardware keyboard to get away from auto-correct nonsense, not to embrace it further.

For example from Ars:

"As for the keyboard itself, after years of using touch-keyboards, going back to a physical one is an odd experience, and I typed far slower as a result of using it. I expect my typing would get better with practice, and there are plenty of people out there that swear by physical keyboards. For them, I've no doubt the move back to a four-row keyboard with the proper alt, shift, and symbol keys will be a welcome one."

The WSJ at least claims some numbers:

"Typing on real keys with a phablet-sized 5.4-inch screen towering over them is odd at first, but once I found my acrobatic balance, my fingers were scurrying around at up to 60 words per minute. That�s about 20% faster than I type on my iPhone (though still 15% slower than on the BlackBerry Classic�s larger, wider, backlit keyboard)."

Even CrackBerry has just:

"The keyboard itself feels as though it's reaching back to the Torch series of devices and giving a wink and a nod in recognition. It's pretty much the same keyboard found here. The angled and sculpted keys are everything we've come to expect from a BlackBerry keyboard including the backlight that turns itself on as you slide open the device. While it's certainly not as roomy as say the BlackBerry Passport keyboard, there's no mistaking the Priv keyboard for anything but a BlackBerry keyboard and that's just how it should be."

Could someone just tell me how fast they can type on this phone if they don't do auto-complete, auto-correct, auto-suggest, swipe-up-to-complete-a-word? If you have a Priv, please just go to TypeRacer and do a Practice run on it for me and tell me what you score. As a reference without any kind of auto-anything on my Nexus 5 and the power of two thumbs I get 30 wpm.

I am writing this using the Priv keyboard. The keys are definitely smaller than the passport or the classic. The key travels are shorter as well. Some of the users have complained that they are having hard time typing if they have big hands. I believe them.

The keyboard also falsely switch to fine select mode without notice. I haven't figured out how I am accidentally enabling that feature.

I can't really type without lookin at the keyboard yet. But coming from the passport, I think I will be needing some type to adjust.

I have a bit of mixed feeling about this. I am loving the tactile scrolling feature.

But the actual physical keyboard has a lot to be desired.

I am not going to enter my judgement quite yet.

Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android

I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of it. They keys are way too small and shadow to type with any type of speed on it. I prefer not to use it.

Thanks for letting me know. I've seen so many comments carry the tone of "it isn't feeling great so far, but maybe it will get better over time, so I'm not going to comment on the keyboard yet" and that does worry me. That was quite a long piece you typed on it though, kwakster928.

Originally Posted by donnation

I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of it. They keys are way too small and shadow to type with any type of speed on it. I prefer not to use it.

That is what I fear. I'm entirely fine with not sliding out the keyboard for most small things I'm doing, such as if I'm browsing a webpage and have to fill in my username/password. But if it gets to the point where it's not even worth sliding it out for something like an email or a forum post, that just kills it for me. If it's WORSE than the onscreen keyboard for that stuff it's a disaster.

Originally Posted by klagermkii

This phone to me is all about the keyboard, I have already accepted that keyboard aside it's an ok Android phone. I could find faster Android phones, or ones with better battery life, or thinner ones. If I buy this it's for the keyboard.

But the reviews I've seen are crap, where they spend MAYBE a paragraph on the keyboard itself. They seem to spend longer talking about the keyboard "auto-complete" gestures than the keyboard itself. I want a hardware keyboard to get away from auto-correct nonsense, not to embrace it further.

For example from Ars:

"As for the keyboard itself, after years of using touch-keyboards, going back to a physical one is an odd experience, and I typed far slower as a result of using it. I expect my typing would get better with practice, and there are plenty of people out there that swear by physical keyboards. For them, I've no doubt the move back to a four-row keyboard with the proper alt, shift, and symbol keys will be a welcome one."

The WSJ at least claims some numbers:

"Typing on real keys with a phablet-sized 5.4-inch screen towering over them is odd at first, but once I found my acrobatic balance, my fingers were scurrying around at up to 60 words per minute. That�s about 20% faster than I type on my iPhone (though still 15% slower than on the BlackBerry Classic�s larger, wider, backlit keyboard)."

Even CrackBerry has just:

"The keyboard itself feels as though it's reaching back to the Torch series of devices and giving a wink and a nod in recognition. It's pretty much the same keyboard found here. The angled and sculpted keys are everything we've come to expect from a BlackBerry keyboard including the backlight that turns itself on as you slide open the device. While it's certainly not as roomy as say the BlackBerry Passport keyboard, there's no mistaking the Priv keyboard for anything but a BlackBerry keyboard and that's just how it should be."

Could someone just tell me how fast they can type on this phone if they don't do auto-complete, auto-correct, auto-suggest, swipe-up-to-complete-a-word? If you have a Priv, please just go to TypeRacer and do a Practice run on it for me and tell me what you score. As a reference without any kind of auto-anything on my Nexus 5 and the power of two thumbs I get 30 wpm.

Check out Android Central's review on it.

Does anyone have a PRIV and a Classic? Could they measure the keyboards?

Posted via CB10

My problem with Torch was that keys had very little travel so using Torch's physical keyboard wasn't half as satisfying as Bold's or Curve's at that time.

Priv has much better key travel and it is almost satisfying. I suspect it'd take couple of days to get used to it. But it is much much better than Torch's keyboard, if you remember that but not as good as Bold, Q10, Classic keyboard. If you don't like it instantly, you'd probably like it after you build muscle memory for it in couple of days. Unlike Torch's keyboard which I could never get used to.

Originally Posted by calicocat2010

Check out Android Central's review on it.

I did read it, and it had similar problems to the other reviews I'd seen. So when it starts talking about the keyboard it has:

This may seem like a strange sentence to read, but one of the biggest parts of the software experience on the BlackBerry Priv is the physical keyboard. This keyboard is a whole lot more than four rows of buttons for text input, which is important because with the screen slid up this phone is really tall. For starters the entire keyboard is capacitive, which means you can swipe your finger across the keyboard itself and the swipe is registered on the screen. This includes swiping left and right on the homescreen to jump from one page to another and scrolling up and down on websites and in apps. When typing on the keyboard, a row of word suggestions appears on the screen just like it would for a software keyboard. Swiping up on the keyboard under those words will set them in your existing sentence as though you had tapped on the screen, so your thumbs never have to leave the keyboard when typing.

Accessing your ALT keyboard happens on screen as well. Swiping down on the keyboard causes a virtual keyboard to appear on the screen, but instead of showing you what you already have on your keyboard you get secondary options like punctuation and the number pad. You can access these things with the ALT key on the keyboard, but sometimes it's faster to move up to the glass for those quick punctuation grabs. The only downside to this feature is it requires the BlackBerry software keyboard to be set as the active keyboard in order to work properly, and while the BlackBerry physical keyboard is awesome its software keyboard isn't quite as capable as many of the Android software keyboards.

All of the stuff about the capacitive touch-ness of the keyboard, and having ALT show a virtual keyboard? Wonderful, but not what I'm interested in, which is how good is the keyboard as a keyboard. Not as a keyboard *** trackpad.

The bit actually talking about using it as a keyboard was:

This is one of the biggest reasons BlackBerry still has a physical keyboard, and the difference is clear. A full third of this review was written on a BlackBerry Priv while doing things like waiting to pick kids up from school or standing in the checkout line, which is something that would never happen on Google's fantastic trace keyboard or SwiftKey's amazing suggestion keyboard. Those are without a doubt the two options to reach for when taking a quick note or for sending a tweet, but BlackBerry still owns the long game and that's significant for some folks.

But that's not really much detail. Tell me how much faster it was, tell me how many fewer errors you made, tell me that you could write things with the correct capitalisation or punctuation without fighting with the auto-correction systems.

The more I am using the keyboard the more I like it (coming from the Passport)
Even though t is tighter like having two �uppercase buttons on either side.
Still getting used to having the Alt button and not going up to the screen as much.
Pressing the voice activation way to much right now by mistake (I have only had this for a few hours)

Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android

Originally Posted by klagermkii

But that's not really much detail. Tell me how much faster it was, tell me how many fewer errors you made, tell me that you could write things with the correct capitalisation or punctuation without fighting with the auto-correction systems.

Yes to all that. In 20 mins, at AT&T store, I was composing a note while talking to sales rep without looking at the keyboard or screen. That is, blind typing, and it came out pretty well with only a couple of typos. I was actually demo-ing that to the sales-rep and explaining to him why I really like physical keyboards. He said, he never thought about this scenario where you might want to blind type but it is cool.

Originally Posted by chrysaurora

Priv has much better key travel and it is almost satisfying. I suspect it'd take couple of days to get used to it. But it is much much better than Torch's keyboard, if you remember that but not as good as Bold, Q10, Classic keyboard. If you don't like it instantly, you'd probably like it after you build muscle memory for it in couple of days. Unlike Torch's keyboard which I could never get used to.

That's positive, I do want to get this phone, but I need to know that one CAN get used to the keyboard eventually rather than it being something where everyone says "maybe it'll grow on you" but then it never does.

Originally Posted by klagermkii

That's positive, I do want to get this phone, but I need to know that one CAN get used to the keyboard eventually rather than it being something where everyone says "maybe it'll grow on you" but then it never does.

I definitely wish it had a little more key travel (like Classic, Q10, Bold) but I was able to start blind typing in about 20 mins. As in my previous post, I actually was demo-ing that to the sales-rep himself to explain why I like physical keyboard and why I am excited about Priv as opposed to other Android devices that he wanted me to consider.

Originally Posted by klagermkii

Could someone just tell me how fast they can type on this phone if they don't do auto-complete, auto-correct, auto-suggest, swipe-up-to-complete-a-word?

A long review on the PKB appeared on TechCrunch yesterday. Looks like a pretty fair review but I can't comfirm that since I don't have a Priv.



Posted via CB10/BB PP SE.

Ive got the priv, coming from the classic and the passport. The priv keyboard is roughly as wide as the classic, but noticeable shorter. the keys are noticeably smaller. I prefer the classic keyboard, but this one is still pretty good. The keys strike a nice balance of being fairly soft and not too noisy, but still satisfying. The fine cursor control is activated by double-tapping the keyboard, just like the passport, although i think it works better here. I'm pleasantly surprised with the keyboard BUT i do have small hands and i could see it being uncomfortable to some, especially if you are someone who prefers the passport to the classic. I find i use the phone with the keyboard out all the time and am very happy with that. Just slide it in to stow and go.

Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android

I should re-iterate that last point - if you are someone who prefers the passport keyboard to the classic keyboard, i think you will have some trouble here. If you were happy with the classic/q10/bold/everything else, i think this will be a pretty easy transition.

Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android

Originally Posted by gocanucks99

I should re-iterate that last point - if you are someone who prefers the passport keyboard to the classic keyboard, i think you will have some trouble here. If you were happy with the classic/q10/bold/everything else, i think this will be a pretty easy transition.

Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android

+1. Agree.

Posted via CB10

http://forums.androidcentral.com/bla...-do-thing.html

This is the guy Russell Holly who did the Review from AC. He Answers like 5-6 posts down on the first page about the keyboard. READ THEM and then ask your questions that he didn't answer in his post.