My take on HTC's „No QWERTY's” decision

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Just think about it - the development and resources that go into a simple glass slab is pretty simple. The magic formula, if you wish, has already been brought to the table since 2007 - a black slab with a screen on top.

But a Hardware Keyboard phone, that's another story. In all the reviews of QWERTY phones, you see how they judge the feel, the grip, the resistance, the ease of use, the placement of keys. It's a whole domain of mobile phone research.

What the Desire Z brought new was it's „Z” sliding factor, which allowed it to be very slim compared to other QWERTY phones, especially „dumb phones” such as Nokia's C6.

The fact that HTC has expertise in this domain has been proven with the Touch Pro, the Touch Pro 2 and also the Desire Z. You can't argue the fact that 90% of the reviews praised the keyboards on these devices, although some caveats, such as the Desire Z not having a separate numbers row, haven't gone unnoticed.

Apart from the sliding mechanism, think about space. I saw the photos of the dismantled iPhone 4S. The battery in that thing takes about 80% of its space. The motherboard is tiny! I wouldn't be surprised to see something similar in our phones, too. Add in the complexity of a keyboard slider and you've got yourself a compromise a company with a rough financial year such as HTC isn't really willing to take.

To add new, more powerful components, you need space for heat to dissipate. You need space for fancier processors (LTE, new imaging chip, better GPU, etc) and that's already hard when you want to supply a battery which allows the user to enjoy the phone for more than three hours before it's dead. With the complexity needed to add a keyboard, you lose precious space which would be better off filled with mAh's rather than hinges and keys.

This is my take on it. What do you guys think?

You forgot about one little beauty.... S730/S740 aka Rose...
That was a beautiful thingy

Sent from my HTC Desire Z using XDA

I think it all boils down to this: no qwerty phone was a real moneymaker for them, so they'll just focus on more successful form factors.
It's a pitty, and I hope HTC will have a change of mind on this.

Sent from my HTC Desire Z using Tapatalk 2

I agree with HTC, DZ is enough massive phone, and mostly by metal casing, but people want more moblity. Personally I don't use my keyboard that much, but it's good feature anyway. Maybe one succesor could be released, but if not, they should release update for us. Comparing today's screens, touch input keys are almost as big as our's, so it's good standing.

Guys, we already have a thread about this lol! http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=1609162 I know we are all upset/frustrated by this news but let's remain calm and rational please

Originally Posted by sino8r

Guys, we already have a thread about this lol! http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=1609162 I know we are all upset/frustrated by this news but let's remain calm and rational please

I wasn't announcing the fact, I was trying to find a reasonable explanation for this, given that HTC has not stated one clearly.

Anyhow, one thing is for certain - HTC's devices will remain top of the line. I, for one, hate Samsung's plasticky design, it feels cheap. HTC phones feel good in hand, and you can touch the quality.

And don't even get me started on the screens. :)

You have another post talking about same issue.

Enviado desde mi HTC Vision usando Tapatalk 2

I don't particularly like Qwerty keyboard phones and I hardly ever use it

Sent from my Desire Z using XDA

I have a Wwildfire S and a GT 7.7, and still my mobile office is the DZ, just because it's so easy to use the sliding KB. There is no comparison between writing a lot of emails on a phisical KB and writing them on an onscreen KB, no matter how evolved the onscreen KB is.

Sent from my HTC Desire Z using Tapatalk 2

I never would buy an Android phone without hardware keyboard. A haptic keyboard doesn't compare to a touchscreen one even with swift or something like that when is comes to input of lage texts.
For a word or so a touchscreen keyboard is OK. But if this will becomes true and HTC does not produce keyboard phones any more, there are other nice alternatives out there..

Mike