BlackBerry Passport's interesting keyboard idea

[mrpalmtop]

Hello everyone,

I saw this article about a new phablet by Blackberry that may interest:

http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/19/the-blackberry-passport-is-a-phablet-with-a-hardware-keyboard-that-makes-no-sense-whatsoever/

I won't comment on the device's commercial viability but it is notable that the keyboard of the Passport positions the space in the middle of its bottom keyboard row. This is in contrast to the Pandora which also uses a 3-row keyboard but positions the space over to the right.

It would seem to me that positioning the space bar the way the Passport does would be optimal compared to the Pandora's placement since most people use their thumbs to hit the middle of the key.

What do you guys think?

 

[TrashyMG]

The Pandora has a 4 row keyboard, just the numeral keys are above the game controls.

 

[levi]

No, I prefer the bottom row to be contiguous. While on a full sized keyboard, Z, X, C and V are the domain of the left hand, and B, N and M that of the right, I'm a self-taught typist, so I'll use a variety of fingers off both hands to hit keys - not to mention the whole home keys thing not really applying to a thumb keyboard.


Other than that, that keyboard's lack of dedicated punctuation, symbol and tab keys mean it's not ideal for this audience, in case you thought there was anything more we could learn from this keyboard.

 

[WizardStan]

Side note: my favourite part of that article are all the comments calling out the author, along the lines of "doesn't do it the way Apple does, therefore is garbage".

 

[mrpalmtop]

Yes, WizardStan, I did like that as well. The U.S. technology press is incredibly biased in favor of Apple products. It's got to be extremely irritating to their competitors.

 

[DaMummy]

not a fan of the space between V & B. used it a bit on a family members cell phone. much rather have to pandora style of space placement