I had one of these! Qwerty keyboard on a phone is a thing I sorely miss.

Everyone seems to, except major phone manufacturers. 😡

I mean it sounds good on paper but who’s going to want to buy a phone that’s 2x thicker because it has a sliding keyboard? No doubt it’ll be really expensive to make too.

People who want a keyboard, that’s who.

I don’t get why people go around acting like these phones did not physically exist in the past in significant numbers, and both the “expense” and thickness problems were not, in fact, problems.

My old Galaxy S Relay 4G was not appreciably any thicker than my current phone is with its case on it. And the Blackberry Priv I had after that was still exactly as thin as current modern phones.

You’re comparing the market 10+ years ago to the market now… Your old phone was tiny compared to modern phones, which is a market that barely exists anymore because people prefer larger screens. It’s one thing for a smaller phone to have a sliding keyboard, but slapping one on an already big phone would make it heavier and clunkier to use. The fact that touch screens are way bigger means that using a touch screen keyboard is much easier than it used to be, making slide out keyboards unnecessary.

I don’t understand why every tech community acts like their niche opinions apply to the whole market. “Everyone wants small phones, we all want sliding keyboards, remember when operating systems were simple?” etc etc. I guarantee you if someone ACTUALLY made the type of phone you want it would barely sell and be seen as a gimmick.

Your old phone was tiny compared to modern phones

This seems to invalidate your statement about thickness being important, and total volume is about the same.

How? His phone was still thicker than phones now and that doesn’t have a cover.

The Priv wasn’t. Read the entire post. The Priv from Blackberry/TCL had a slider keyboard and altogether was 9.5mm thick. My current Moto G Power 5G is 8.5. An iPhone 16 is 8.25. This is not an appreciable difference.

Obviously there’s not any technical reason anyone couldn’t make a modern slider as thin as current slates, it’s just that with the discontinuation of the Priv nobody does. And that’s not even getting into fixed keyboard designs.

And imagine how much they sacrificed to make it 9.5mm. Not to mention that phone is an outlier (and the iphone 16 is actually 7.8mm). Priorities changed, phones now need more space for things like a bigger battery, better cameras, bigger heatsinks for faster performance and less throttling.

There are technical reasons. You can’t just put in a sliding keyboard on a modern phone and expect it to work the same. They’ll have to cut on so much to fit that without being too thick, and in the end you’ll end up with a phone that’s worse in every way and probably more expensive, for a feature so little people want.

What? I don’t have to “imagine” anything. I literally owned one, for two years. Nothing was “sacrificed” on the Priv. It was in all aspects a completely modern phone, even managing to include a headphone jack and memory card slot, a curved edge display, wireless charging, and a 3400 mAh battery. And don’t try to come at me about battery capacity, either. Just to name an example, its contemporary in the Galaxy S7 had a 3000 mAh battery, was the flagship phone of its time, and sold bucketloads of units.

Your argument is bullshit. Slider phones aren’t made because manufacturers don’t want to make them – be that for low projected sales reasons or whatever else – not because there is any physical reason they can’t.

This guy is making the same argument that people do when they claim it’s impossible to make a phone waterproof while also having a removable battery even though these phones already existed and it’s a super basic solution. It’s just ignorance and loud opinions all around.