I need a new phone, some help?

[thesentinel]

Recentrly I discovered that phones are kind of important apparently, but I noticed that all phones these days have **** touchscreens. So I need a slide phone with physical buttons.

But while looking for one, I came across the Motorola Photon Q. ( http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2408850,00.asp#disqus_thread )

And I really liked it because it seemed to work like a modern smart phone but with physical buttons for texting (which is something I'd probably do).

So is this my best option for what I want, or are there similar phones out there? And if this phone is probably my best option, is it actually so bad that I just shouldn't use it and go with something else?

[daerid]

Best of luck. My fiance is the same way (hates touch screens). Unfortunately all the phones with physical keyboards these days are kinda crap.

[Smasher816]

Touchscreen keyboards can have a few different styles. Personally swyping is pretty nice.

Like daerid said, finding new phone with a physical keyboard is pretty difficult. I'm not sure how much the operating system matters to you. If you are ok without all the android and iOS app and games then maybe you could try a blackberry. It has a keyboard, texts, and makes calls

[chibishin]

I had the Photon Q for a short while, having upgraded from an Epic 4G. The cam on the Q was pretty terrible, and although it was faster than my as-then ancient Epic, it wasn't as responsive as I would've liked; keyboard was awesome, though.

At any rate, I took it back within a week and ended up going with an HTC One. For the longest time I avoided touchscreen phones because:

1.) I'm a network engineer and I sometimes have to get on my phone if I don't have a laptop with me to email or do some basic information gathering/troubleshooting, and touchscreen keyboards weren't all that mature.

2.) I loved the tactile feedback of clicky buttons.

The One has worked marvelously for me, and I can type about as fast as I could on my Epic/Q. The bad news for folks like us is QWERTY sliders are no longer in demand or style. I'd say go down to the store, if you can, and play around with as many touchscreen phones as you can. Swype is good for texting, emailing, and basic stuff, but if you have to do any kind of remote work, it's worthless.

[Smasher816]

Swype is good for texting, emailing, and basic stuff, but if you have to do any kind of remote work, it's worthless.

For VNC or SSH (remote shell) I used "Hacker Keyboard" for Android. It has all the arrow keys, modifier keys, and function keys that a normal desktop keyboard has.

[chibishin]

Swype is good for texting, emailing, and basic stuff, but if you have to do any kind of remote work, it's worthless.

For VNC or SSH (remote shell) I used "Hacker Keyboard" for Android. It has all the arrow keys, modifier keys, and function keys that a normal desktop keyboard has.

Yeah I find the default HTC Sense keyboard to be enough since it has arrow keys, and connectbot can toggle CTRL.

[Lanx]

**** you motorola, i would never trust motorola with a smart phone after suffering with the droid (slide out keyboard), just **** you motorola, eversince i got a samsung galaxy, droid is great, but it was pathetic with motorola.

**** you motorola.

btw learn to use touch screens, i also was one of the few that wanted a physical keyboard at any cost... but not at the suck ass motorola droid ****, learn to use touch screen, just buy an iphone or big ass screen droid, doesn't matter.

[Windos]

If you're REALLY serious about wanting a physical keyboard, you should probably consider the new Blackberry Q10. If blackberry does one thing well, it's their keyboard (and is probably the only reason I see people with them these days.)

Touch keyboards are the way everyone is going now, so if you don't want to go the Blackberry route it'd pay to start getting used to them. Cheap android phones are generally, well... cheap, so you do need to spend a bit of money to make sure you're getting a half decent screen. The main thing to look for is that the screen is glass and not *shudders* plastic. My work insisted on our entry level smartphones being as cheap as possible and the cheap plastic screens actually moved under your finger.

A good starting point on the lower end, while still having a decent screen is probably the Moto G or even the "mini" versions of the Flagship phones (S4/5 and HTC One.)

The software for the keyboard can also make or break your touch experience. Every manufacturer has their own which range from okay/good to absolute rubbish. I personally use the Google Keyboard on any Android device I touch now.