[Concession]

Are there any other highendish phones with a physical qwerty (slider or not) and sd slot that have come out recently or have been announced?

I'm not aware of any competitive products.

Posted using CrackBerry App on BB10

[Masahiro]

Nope. BlackBerry pretty much has a lock on the keyboard market.

[Mikethaler]

My wife got a HTC 4G Slider about 18 months ago. (Has a GREAT camera.) Her 8900 was on life support. The 9900 had just come out, but the 9810 with a keyboard was not available. The 9900 didn't/doesn't have a usable camera and she wasn't sure about giving up a keyboard. I don't know of any other high end phones with any kind of physical keyboard. I need one because of a hand tremor that makes a virtual keyboard hard to use.

[anon(3896606)]

Are there any other highendish phones with a physical qwerty (slider or not) and sd slot that have come out recently or have been announced?

I'm not aware of any competitive products.

Posted using CrackBerry App on BB10

Nope, the only keyboard devices out there are in the low-mid market.
That is why many people are excited for the Q10!
(BlackBerry is being very smart by releasing a product that no other company is releasing...)

[Bbnivende]

My wife got a HTC 4G Slider about 18 months ago. (Has a GREAT camera.) Her 8900 was on life support. The 9900 had just come out, but the 9810 with a keyboard was not available. The 9900 didn't/doesn't have a usable camera and she wasn't sure about giving up a keyboard. I don't know of any other high end phones with any kind of physical keyboard. I need one because of a hand tremor that makes a virtual keyboard hard to use.

OK I will sound like your typical thin skinned BB owner when I say that I have taken some very decent pictures on my 9900.

[Mikethaler]

OK I will sound like your typical thin skinned BB owner when I say that I have taken some very decent pictures on my 9900.

Even BB announced the 9900's camera wasn't up to the level of previous models because they wanted to make it 1mm thinner. That doesn't mean you can't wind up with "acceptable" pics. You are just more limited as to what you can do compared with other BB models. The HTC I referred to has an outstanding camera. Having a superb camera isn't high on my/her list, but she wouldn't wanted to have taken a step back. She was surprised at the quality of the HTC and no longer carries a stand alone camera.

[jjfad]

Are there any other highendish phones with a physical qwerty (slider or not) and sd slot that have come out recently or have been announced?

I'm not aware of any competitive products.

Posted using CrackBerry App on BB10

Samsung Galaxy S Relay has a slider QWERTY, on T-Mobile. I tried it out. Great specs overall, fantastic battery life. I ended up going back to my 9930 because I like the option of one handed use and I couldn't really do that with the Relay.

[Taigatrommel]

In short, no there are no competetive products in this class. The Q10 is pretty much a high-end device and by far the only one which features a full QWERTY keyboard.

There are a couple of Android QWERTY and slider models out there, however their specs are rather poor, especially considering they are running Android. 800 Mhz CPUs and 512 MB of RAM are a common sight there.

In terms of future products, situation doesn't look better. HTC has given up on physical keyboards of any format. Sony (Ericsson) most likely won't build any more too, especially considering their latest announcements.
We have Nokia, which has always been a decent QWERTY company, but they changed strategy. QWERTY only comes for Asha feature phonesand I highly doubt we'll ever see a WP8 slider created by them.
Motorola might do another version of their well known "Droid" sliders, however no announcement here.

So as you can see, the Q10 is basicly without any serious competetion in its own class.

[Turnda643]

You would think that if this is the situation, BlackBerry would be in a hurry to put a stronghold on the Qwerty market globally.

[Turnda643]

In short, no there are no competetive products in this class. The Q10 is pretty much a high-end device and by far the only one which features a full QWERTY keyboard.

There are a couple of Android QWERTY and slider models out there, however their specs are rather poor, especially considering they are running Android. 800 Mhz CPUs and 512 MB of RAM are a common sight there.

In terms of future products, situation doesn't look better. HTC has given up on physical keyboards of any format. Sony (Ericsson) most likely won't build any more too, especially considering their latest announcements.
We have Nokia, which has always been a decent QWERTY company, but they changed strategy. QWERTY only comes for Asha feature phonesand I highly doubt we'll ever see a WP8 slider created by them.
Motorola might do another version of their well known "Droid" sliders, however no announcement here.

So as you can see, the Q10 is basicly without any serious competetion in its own class.

You would think that if this is the situation, BlackBerry would be in a hurry to release the Q10 to get a stronghold on the Qwerty market globally.

[Taigatrommel]

You would think that if this is the situation, BlackBerry would be in a hurry to release the Q10 to get a stronghold on the Qwerty market globally.

Why hurry up? Thorsten Heins himself stated that "Blackberry owns the QWERTY market" and he is right. By looking at the Z10 threads out there, I am somehow glad the Q10 is a bit behind schedule. There are still some not unimportant features missing on BB10, the desktop software Blackberry Link appears to be in a beta stage at best and BB10 itself seems to have a few quirks. All that is stuff which could be fixed before the Q10 hits the stores.

Also keep in mind there won't be any heavy competition in terms of QWERTY devices, unless Samsung suddenly decides to create an Android based high-end QWERTY...which I doubt. So if you are looking for a decent device with such a physical keyboard, you'd have to be patient anyways.

Oh and last but not least: keep in mind the BB10.1 SDK has just been released a week ago. This thing is vital to create apps optimized for the Q10s screen ratio. So developers also get time to get their apps right.

[Bbnivende]

Even BB announced the 9900's camera wasn't up to the level of previous models because they wanted to make it 1mm thinner. That doesn't mean you can't wind up with "acceptable" pics. You are just more limited as to what you can do compared with other BB models. The HTC I referred to has an outstanding camera. Having a superb camera isn't high on my/her list, but she wouldn't wanted to have taken a step back. She was surprised at the quality of the HTC and no longer carries a stand alone camera.

Yes ... I see what you mean after I looked up an old test on Crackberry the 9900 camera. Ah well ...

We are agreed , no serious competition right now but I have to think that if the Q10 takes off that we will see some new models trying to compete. We can see that BB is open to competition in a large screen slider model similar to the BB mock up that that a third party made up. The Q10 screen is still only 3.1 inches and we might see a 3.5 inch android based on the classic design. Apple is total touch but you never know now that Jobs is gone they might want to apply some great industrial design to the QWERTY.

[Jake Storm]

BlackBerry Q10... There is no substitute.

[Whitecaps]

None.... BB9900 is king of all qwerty

[wolfdale]

Agreed. QWERTY is best on the Blackberry and is a major reason why I stayed loyal to BB. If I can't get a Q10 (soon) then I'm going android.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9360 using Tapatalk

[DannyAves]

Agreed. QWERTY is best on the Blackberry and is a major reason why I stayed loyal to BB. If I can't get a Q10 (soon) then I'm going android.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9360 using Tapatalk

I would rather use my 9900 than any QWERTY on Android.

[SpiralBorg]

There was the HTC 7 Pro, its a windows phone slider, though that's nearly three-years old.....
The Motorola Pro+ is a mid-range phone, isn't too old, and was designed as a blackberry competitor.
The Motorola Droid 4 is a high-end slider phone, I think its only on Verizon in the US (and other countries such as Canada), and the Photon Q.
The Captivate Glide by Samsung, is also an great substitute.
However, a Bold 9900,though two-years old, is still an great QWERTY phone.
Ultimately, I do recommend waiting for the Q10, if you don't want the Z10 or any other QWERTY phone.
-Thank-you for reading.

[smartbuddy]

9900 is the best available and Q10 is the most anticipated QWERTY phone period.

[val_lixembeau]

The Motorola Pro+ is a mid-range phone, isn't too old, and was designed as a blackberry competitor.

I considered one of these but the keyboard feel just isn't there. The screen resolution is underwhelming. The device feels kind of sluggish. And it is rather thick. Barely competitive to the 9900 in my opinion. The Q10 should blow it away.

[shooptek]

Precisely the opposite, actually.

The Q10 is going to sell for BB. They are the only ones with a reasonable QWERTY on a high-end (ish) device, so they are rushing other models to market to grab market share they dont know that they can snag.

[Mamaluka]

You would think that if this is the situation, BlackBerry would be in a hurry to put a stronghold on the Qwerty market globally.

You would think, right? I can tell you that at least once a week I google around looking for a new qwerty phone. The last portrait qwerty worth looking at was the Motorola Admiral. Keyboard is very smilar to the 9xxx series. Button shape and happy face layout included. So its a race to June to see who does what. In my opinion, motorola can and will buff out that line to a larger candybar thin qwerty. Question is, once this bb qwerty is released, who will already have moved on. All I see on this Q10 forum are people who, like me, are in shock that "shortly after" means maybe June. A lot will happen in the smartphone arena by then. Good luck rim...I'm rootin for ya (no pun!)

[jjfad]

You would think, right? I can tell you that at least once a week I google around looking for a new qwerty phone. The last portrait qwerty worth looking at was the Motorola Admiral.

That's really the key for me. I've tried slider QWERTYs but because I need the one handed use option that basically restricts me to portrait QWERTYs.

I haven't tried Admiral but I did try the Moto XPRT. It was fine. Amazing battery life. NIce to have apps I can actually use. A little sluggish and underpowered. But the worst is that the keyboard kept sticking after a few months (this happened to 3 phones in a row, so I gave up).

Hoping that BB comes through with the Q10. If Q10 is a bust then I will probably have to bolt for the next decent portrait QWERTY...

[machoman1337]

HTC Desire Z - obviously outdated today but at the time of its release it was at the upper mid range, basically a Nexus One with a landscape slider. Flashing CyanogenMod and bumping the CPU to 1024 Mhz would truly turn it into a Nexus One, lol. This phone's actually aged fairly well in the world of keyboard-equipped Androids - a lot of the new models are extremely low end and worse in specs than the Desire Z. There are some new keyboard models that have better specs, like the xperia Pro and the samsung captivate glide, but they aren't widely available and the actual keyboards are really not as good as the DZ's - that's a dealbreaker for anyone who values the keyboard.

If you want an Android slider that has a decent keyboard and isn't outrageously low end, consider grabbing a used DZ off ebay (in the states, it's a T-Mobile G2). It's really the best balance between keyboard quality and phone specs right now despite its age. Healthy community support continues to breathe new life into the DZ.

Going to get my mom a Q10 to replace her DZ, which is actually my DZ that I passed to her to replace her broken DZ!

As for keyboard smartphones that are portrait... unless you count some crappy older Nokia symbians that predated the iPhone, I guess not. My dad used to have a Nokia E61i, too bad no one makes anything like it nowadays.