I would like to know how much larger the cruise against the touch. does anyone have both that can post a side by side shot
I'm in the same boat. It's 10mm longer and 1.5 mm thicker according to specs. Really wish I could experience one before buying!
I was concerned about this as well, but its not bad. Its not too thick for me.
I am very glad I bought it. Its a great device... everything worked perfectly out of the box.
From the specs it's almost identical in size and weight to the Artemis so if you could find a store with an Artemis (or re-brand like O2 XDA Orbit) then that would give you a really good idea of how the TC will feel in the hand and/or pocket. In fact the TC is about a mm thinner than the Artemis so if anything the TC will be slightly more pocketable.
I'm in the UK and when I bought my first device (an Artemis) I went into an O2 shop and played for a long time with the Touch and the Artemis (O2 XDA Orbit). I ended up buying the Artemis, even though it is bigger and I really do care a lot about size and weight, and I didn't regret it. I find it completely unobtrusive in my pockets.
- Julian
Here you go (halfway down the page)
http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1303843
JNGold said:
Here you go (halfway down the page)
http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1303843
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Geez, the Polaris IS thick.
I almost pulled the trigger on a Polaris this week but now I'm really torn. I dusted off my old Eten and Trinity and looked at some friends devices this weekend. One thing the Touch has going for is the very few small hard to press buttons. Add to that the screen that some claim is not sensitive enough and you have a device that is ideal to store in your pocket. With my Trinity in my pocket, if I got a text or a call, buttons were always pressed and several apps opened. Even with the flush screen, the Touch never accidentally calls people, etc.
Hard to tell from the pics - does the Polaris have a large button pad like the trinity? I mean, are all the buttons one large piece?
My problem isn't the lack of features with the Touch. I can't get more than 1 bar in my office with AT&T GSM and miss calls but with 3G, I get 3. I've tried this with my trinity and 8525. I've Asked my AT&T rep and he can't explain it. Thought the size of the Touch would offset the reception issue. After 6 mo, I am looking for a small device with 3G. Considering a Polaris or LG MS25. Odd thing is that Sprint and Verizon don't get a signal either but T-mobile does. I'm gonna pop a T-Mobile SIM in my Touch and see. I'd hate to switch carriers but HTC has let us down by not putting 3G in the "enhanced" Touch.
Baxter said:
(..) With my Trinity in my pocket, if I got a text or a call, buttons were always pressed and several apps opened. Even with the flush screen, the Touch never accidentally calls people, etc.(..)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you're seriously in doubt between these two devices you really need to take a look at S2U2 to lock your device (automatically on screen off).
Incidentally: I used to have S2U2 installed on my Artemis, but on the Polaris the ON/OFF button is situated on top of the device, which means that it is very unlikely going to be pushed inside my pocket. By default all buttons except ON/OFF are switched off on screen off. So far I haven't felt the need to install S2U2 on my Polaris, however happy I was with its performance on my previous device.
Seriously, the Touch is no competition for the Polaris, performancewise.
I've been looking for a long time for an app that would prevent all buttons & screen from waking on incoming sms/call but still allow audible alert or vibrate. Pressing on/off would wake much like opening a flip phone. I'd prefer that it run in the background and not require a slide or button combination to "unlock". Just simply have to press power to wake. Does it do that? I'll give it a try if you say it does.
Baxter said:
I've been looking for a long time for an app that would prevent all buttons & screen from waking on incoming sms/call but still allow audible alert or vibrate. Pressing on/off would wake much like opening a flip phone. I'd prefer that it run in the background and not require a slide or button combination to "unlock". Just simply have to press power to wake. Does it do that? I'll give it a try if you say it does.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What you're describing is the default functionality of the Polaris. After 3 minutes inactivity it falls asleep on screen off (you can use power button to force sleep) and locks screen and buttons except power button.
Calls, notifications etc. still work, (bluetooth) audio will also keep running.
To awake, press power button.
So you are saying that the polaris doesn't wake when you have an incoming call or sms? Maybe there is a misunderstanding. I want to have to press power before being able to answer.
I used to touch type on old candy bar and slide phones without having to look at the screen, by feeling the dialpad keys I knew what button I was on and using the T9 dictionary it was easy, I really miss this in new phones now.
I wanted to buy a dialpad phone with Android as a 2nd phone but there are none being made so I think they are going the way of the dodo.
There is no feesable way to touch type on new phones, qwerty keyboards have too many keys, haptic feedback is in its infancy, so I propose a full screen T9 keyboard for touch typing.
The whole display would be filled with 9 or 10 buttons representing 0-9 like a standard dialpad.
This wouldn't be the main input method, I think it would be good for it to activate by pressing the volume down button twice while in a text field and deactivate by doing the same thing. Hopefully it should be possible to touch type without haptic feedback when the whole screen is filled with only 9 buttons.
Let me know what you guys think.
why the full screen??? my htc hero has softkb with t9, fills half the screen. I never use qwerty. Works like a charm. you can get the htc_ime.apk and use that.
I havent heard of anyone being able to touch type on a touchscreen phone yet, ie writing an sms while driving without looking at their phone.
If it is literally filling the whole screen it may be possible on a 3.7" screen the buttons will be big, you are either pressing one of the corners, middle or sides.
If it is filling only half the screen it becomes a lot more difficult if not impossible.
Hello! Long time user, but noob on a windows 7 phone, It has some problems.... when you type on the on screen keyboard, you cant type a message properly, its like there is bad calibration issues, but when you try to ring a number, all the numbers work okay, is there a way to calibrate the screen? also calculator works okay, also some options you cant click on say for instance, the logging into windows marketplace, you cant enter your email address but can enter password??? WTF HELP!!!!!!!!!!!
Your primary Windows Live ID (the one used for Marketplace) is set and locked when the phone is first run. If you messed up then, you'll need to hard-reset the phone and start again. Actually, you may want to do that anyhow.
I don't know any user-accessible way to calibrate the touch screen on an HTC phone. It shouldn't need it, though. Note that the on-screen keyboard does have some tricky predictive stuff that means it may occasinally think you ment to hit a key next to the one you tapped. You can turn this off in Settings. However, it should never hit more than about half a finger-width from what you actually tapped, and I very rarely see that much. Tapping squarely on a specific key should always work. You can also make the keys larger (most of the time) by putting the phone in landscape (rotate it).
Hello XDA! I'm one of those old school guys who likes physical keyboard on phone. Specially I like qwerty sliders but the bad thing is that they are dying out. (Watch out small screens, you are next!). Of course there is Priv but I think that it is sliding wrong way. So I decided to make my own qwerty slider:
I bought "The Beast" Xiaomi Mi4C and a bluetooth qwerty keyboard case for iPhone 6 (about 20$). First I cut the edges from the case, drilled hole for a speaker and made the camera hole little bit bigger for flash light. Then I just glued phone and case together. Because I cut the edges from the case there was about 1-3mm meeting between case and phone. I filled the cap with Sugru™. It should last for usage and temperature changes (between -50°C to +180°C).
For the software part I rooted my Mi4C and flashed CM13. Then I installed Keyboard Manager. With that app you can change keyboard based on orientation automatically. For landscape I use Minuum Keyboard with Mini Mode because I wanted the 5th number row. In the settings you can make the Minuum Keyboard only 140px (60+80) high. It takes only 13% of your screen space on Mi4C. If you don't want to use Minuum Keyboard you can use Null Input Method. In portait I use Google Keyboard. (Hint: You can transfer your dictionary from other keyboard to Minuum Keyboard).
When you install the Keyboard Manager you need to make this fix:
ne0fhyk said:
If you are unable to launch the app after installation, please follow these steps:
- Look in your sdcard folder for the directory /Android/data/com.ne0fhykLabs.android.utility.kmLauncher/files/
- There should be an apk file there, Keyboardmanager.x.y.apk, where x,y stands for the version number
- Copy that file to /system/app/, and change the permissions to rw-r--r-- (Read/write for owner, read for group, and read for other)
- Reboot your device, and try running the app again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Total dimensions are 139 x 69.6 x 16 mm and weight is 228 g but I have installed tempered glass screen protector. For comparison Motorola Droid 4: 127 x 67.3 x 12.7 mm and 178.9 g. Here is more pictures:
http://imgur.com/a/Pbvpo
Here are some similar projects:
NUU keyboard and Alcatel One Touch Star
Turning Samsung galaxy note 4 (SM-N910F) into a mobile pc
OnePlus X and iPhone 6 qwerty case (finnish)
Xiaomi Note 2 and Galaxy S4 qwerty case (finnish)
Hit thanks if you liked my mod
PS: I already bought another original back cover so I can change back to "normal" phone if I like (not going to happen :silly
I have found one 5 row bluetooth keyboard case. It is for iPhone 5/5s so it is much smaller. Maybe it is possible to mod it to Mi4C or other phone (Xperia Z5 Compact?):
That's great. I've seen these few Bluetooth sliding keyboards and have been wondering if it was possible to mod them to fit other phones, and obviously it is!
Does the sliding mechanism have any kind of sensor that will tell the phone whether the keyboard is open or not? I use an Xperia Pro and often slide the keyboard open to wake the phone, and also force it into landscape mode. I also sometimes deliberately shut the keyboard in order to gain access to the landscape on-screen keyboard for special symbols, and it would be easier if I could keep it in landscape mode to do that rather than switch to portrait.
With the keyboard closed I guess the speaker is a bit muffled?
pelago said:
That's great. I've seen these few Bluetooth sliding keyboards and have been wondering if it was possible to mod them to fit other phones, and obviously it is!
Does the sliding mechanism have any kind of sensor that will tell the phone whether the keyboard is open or not? I use an Xperia Pro and often slide the keyboard open to wake the phone, and also force it into landscape mode. I also sometimes deliberately shut the keyboard in order to gain access to the landscape on-screen keyboard for special symbols, and it would be easier if I could keep it in landscape mode to do that rather than switch to portrait.
With the keyboard closed I guess the speaker is a bit muffled?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The keyboard that I have does not have any sensor that could tell if the keyboard is open or not. However, I believe that it could be pretty easy to implement with NFC. You could just put NFC tag to the keyboard (where?) and the phone would recognize when the keyboard is closed. (I mean that there would be connection in closed position and no-connection in opened position). Mi4C doesn't have NFC so I can't test this. Actually I don't miss that feature at all. I'm pretty happy with double tap. Also you can simply press one button on keyboard and it will wake up the screen.
It is also possible to implement a switcher for keyboard. With Tasker and Secure Settings you can make a toggle which change the keyboard. And if you wanna be really geeky you can control that toggle with gestures using AutomateIt (or maybe Tasker can do this also) and All in one Gestures. So if you use Null Input Method in landscape you can just swipe up to change it to Google Keyboard for example.
For me Minuum Keyboard has every special symbol that I need. Actually only ones that are missing from keyboard are "[" and "]". There are tons of possibilities to tweak with. It is possible to lock phone in landscape with gestures also. You just have to be little bit creative. Of course "native" QWERTY slider is always better but I'm happy with my mod.
The speaker is not that bad in closed position in my Mi4C. As you can se from the teardown pictures the speaker is located only in the left side of the phone when you look from back. Also the keyboard does not cover the speaker directly so there is a air cap between speaker and keyboard. You can test this by placing your thumb directly to the speaker and then test again and leave this time a 5mm cap between finger and speaker.
Flash-A-Holic said:
The keyboard that I have does not have any sensor that could tell if the keyboard is open or not. However, I believe that could be pretty easy to implement with NFC. You could just put NFC tag to the keyboard (where?) and the phone would recognize when the keyboard is closed. (I mean that there would be connection in closed position and no-connection in opened position). Mi4C doesn't have NFC so I can't test this. Actually I don't miss that feature at all. I'm pretty happy with double tap. Also you can simply press one button on keyboard and it will wake up the screen.
It is also possible to implement a switcher for keyboard. With Tasker and Secure Settings you can make a toggle which change the keyboard. And if you wanna be really geeky you can control that toggle with gestures using AutomateIt (or maybe Tasker can do this also) and All in one Gestures. So if you use Null Input Method in landscape you can just swipe up to change it to Google Keyboard for example.
For me Minuum Keyboard has every special symbol that I need. Actually only ones that are missing from keyboard are "[" and "]". There are tons of possibilities to tweak with. It possible to lock phone in landscape with gestures also. You just have to bi little bit creative. Of course "native" QWERTY slider is always better but I'm happy with my mod.
The speaker is not that bad in closed position in my Mi4C. As you can se from the teardown pictures the speaker is located only in the left side of the phone when you look from back. Also the keyboard does not cover the speaker directly so there is a air cap between speaker and keyboard. You can test this by placing your thumb directly to speaker and then test again leaving and 5mm cap between finger and speaker.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For my similar project you've already seen, I've used tasker to automate the phone unlock and horizontal rotation when the NUU keyboard slides out and so connects to BT.
On NUU keuboard there isn't nothing that inform the phone that the keyboard is closed, other than the BT disconnection timeout.
So i made a number of conditions to get practical the exit from the qwerty mode.
The phone turned in vertical, if the screen went in standby, if the phone was oriented verctically, and if a physical button was long pushed.
With tasker I had also the automated soft keyboard switch, because the SW keyboard I wanted to use with the vertical keyboard wasn't physical keyboard friendly. So I used two different sw keyboards that switched automatically depending if the phone was landscape or portrait mode.
The landscape keyboard could be the simple null keyboard, if you don't care about the spell checking function.
How's the weight distribution with this combination? With "native" qwerty phones, like Xperia Pro, and Nokia N900, the weight is mostly in the lower half (the keyboard half), with the top half only being the screen itself. This means that the bit you hold and type on is the heavier one.
With your project, is the top (screen/phone) half heavier than the keyboard, and if so, does that mean it feels top heavy if you're holding it by the keyboard only, and feel like it might topple to the ground?
How's the battery life on the keyboard? It would be annoying to have to charge it every day like the phone itself.
Which exact keyboard did you use? Did you take any pics of the making process, to turn it into a sort of tutorial?
EDIT: Have you done this, or seen it done by others, on different model phones?
pelago said:
How's the weight distribution with this combination? With "native" qwerty phones, like Xperia Pro, and Nokia N900, the weight is mostly in the lower half (the keyboard half), with the top half only being the screen itself. This means that the bit you hold and type on is the heavier one.
With your project, is the top (screen/phone) half heavier than the keyboard, and if so, does that mean it feels top heavy if you're holding it by the keyboard only, and feel like it might topple to the ground?
How's the battery life on the keyboard? It would be annoying to have to charge it every day like the phone itself.
Which exact keyboard did you use? Did you take any pics of the making process, to turn it into a sort of tutorial?
EDIT: Have you done this, or seen it done by others, on different model phones?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't measured the weight yet but I will do that later today and add it to the first post. The weight is 228g. For me it is pretty light weigh compared to the size. (Xiaomi Mi 4C itself weights 132g). The weight distribution is pretty stable. I mean if I open the keyboard and leave the phone to the table it will stay steady. I can even push the screen part and it will go back where it was. It doesn't feel that it is going to flip when I'm holding it. Of course there is more weight in the screen part but it is pretty stable.
The battery life of the keyboard is very good. I don't even know how long it will last. I have been charging the keyboard once a week. For phone I got 4h SOT in one charge with bluetooth always on. Sorry, I didn't take any pictures during the process. However, here is one picture when I was testing this combination with double-sided tape. Back then there was nasty cap between case and phone. I filled that cap with Sugru™. I don't know if anyone else has done this kind of mod excluding The Solutor. Althought I have found this: Turning Samsung galaxy note 4 (SM-N910F) into a mobile pc
I believe that I bought this one: Mini Bluetooth V3.0 Ultra-thin Wireless Slide-Out Keyboard case cover for iPhone 6 (4.7). I bought it from different seller from ebay and it was cheaper but the name is same (V3.0).
The Solutor said:
For my similar project you've already seen, I've used tasker to automate the phone unlock and horizontal rotation when the NUU keyboard slides out and so connects to BT.
On NUU keuboard there isn't nothing that inform the phone that the keyboard is closed, other than the BT disconnection timeout.
So i made a number of conditions to get practical the exit from the qwerty mode.
The phone turned in vertical, if the screen went in standby, if the phone was oriented verctically, and if a physical button was long pushed.
With tasker I had also the automated soft keyboard switch, because the SW keyboard I wanted to use with the vertical keyboard wasn't physical keyboard friendly. So I used two different sw keyboards that switched automatically depending if the phone was landscape or portrait mode.
The landscape keyboard could be the simple null keyboard, if you don't care about the spell checking function.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually you were an inspiration for me, thank you . I will check what Tasker can do for me. For now I think that bluetooth timeout method is too slow. I think that double tab is much faster and easier.
Flash-A-Holic said:
Actually you were an inspiration for me, thank you .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks
I will check what Tasker can do for me. For now I think that bluetooth timeout method is too slow.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I wrote too quickly, and I wanted to be brief just beacause I don't want to hijiak other's threads.
Anyway, the BT timeout didn't require tasker at all. It's just an internal timeout of the NUU keyboard.
What tasker did in that scenario, was the exit contition:
Enter condition ---> the keyboard slides out and connects to BT. Tasker rotates the screen, switches the keyboard, unlocks the phone (if needed) and so on.
On BT timeout (which is managed by the keyboard)--- tasker reverted the above actions.
Additionally I made a number of other conditions to force the exit task.
The phone is hold vertically for a second or so, the screen is turned off (because the power button was pushed, or because the phone turned it off), a physical button was long pushed, and maybe others that I don't remember.
Obviously there only your fantasy is the limit. You can choose a gesture, a tap combination, a shake action...
Whatever tasker and its plugins are able to manage...
Want to make me one? How much do you want?
Supovitz said:
Want to make me one? How much do you want?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe it is better that you make it by yourself. I believe that shipping cost etc. would cost too much for you.
Flash-A-Holic said:
First I cut the edges from the case, drilled hole for a speaker and made the camera hole little bit bigger for flash light. Then I just glued phone and case together. Because I cut the edges from the case there was about 1-3mm meeting between case and phone. I filled the cap with Sugru™.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was wondering about the reason for cutting off the edges and then filling the gap with Sugru. I don't have the parts yet, but I assume the problem is that the phone is slightly too large to sit within the keyboard case edges as manufactured?
It would be great if there was a way to simply remove the phone from the keyboard case just by pulling the phone out, as you can do with the iPhone 6 the case is designed for. Would there be any way to modify the case to make that possible?
Also, is the back of the keyboard case less slippery than the original Mi 4C back cover?
pelago said:
I was wondering about the reason for cutting off the edges and then filling the gap with Sugru. I don't have the parts yet, but I assume the problem is that the phone is slightly too large to sit within the keyboard case edges as manufactured?
It would be great if there was a way to simply remove the phone from the keyboard case just by pulling the phone out, as you can do with the iPhone 6 the case is designed for. Would there be any way to modify the case to make that possible?
Also, is the back of the keyboard case less slippery than the original Mi 4C back cover?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes Mi4C doesn't fit to the iPhone case properly. If you want removable keyboard case then you can buy a cover case for Mi4C. Then just glue the cover case and keyboard case together. You can also pull out the whole sliding mechanism like this (not my modification):
There is pretty good grip in the keyboard case. Much less slippery than Mi4C.
Thanks.
Looking around, I've found someone doing something similar. A few years old, but may be useful for some ideas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cu6UCobKyY
I've just bought one of those sliding keyboards for iPhone 6. It looks a little different to your one - mine looks like:
Specifically, mine has a sliding power switch on the left, a Bluetooth sync button above that, the space bar is only two normal letters width rather than three, it has an extra "clover" button on the right of the space bar, the labelling is different on some keys to the left, and the keys in general look flatter than yours.
I haven't tried modding it yet, but I'm a bit put off by the power switch, as I would rather not have to switch the keyboard off and on manually. Does your keyboard have a power switch on it too, somewhere else?
I know that beggars can't be choosers, but having tried this keyboard for a while (in conjunction with a Nexus 7 (2013), as I don't actually have a Mi 4C yet), there are some aspects of it which aren't perfect.
For a start, the keys are quite clicky, much more so than my Xperia Pro or Nokia N900, making it noisier to use whenever there is someone else around.
I would like there to be a Ctrl key - I've been trying to use External Keyboard Helper to map keys, and the ideal one looks like the two clover keys, but I can't seem to map those. When I press those keys I get a big animated white border around the entire screen - is that Google Now? I don't know, as I don't use that.
There is also an annoying few seconds delay after pressing a key to wake up the keyboard and the device responding. With my previous phones with intergrated keyboards, they respond straight away. This is presumably just because of Bluetooth and nothing can really be done about that.
The five-row Boxwave keyboard buddy you mention in the second post looks interesting, but I can't seem to find it (or any generic branded clones) on ebay unfortunately.
pelago said:
I would like there to be a Ctrl key - I've been trying to use External Keyboard Helper to map keys, and the ideal one looks like the two clover keys, but I can't seem to map those. When I press those keys I get a big animated white border around the entire screen - is that Google Now? I don't know, as I don't use that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's been a while since I did that phone, but, assuming you're rooted you should be able to adjust the keylayout to your lickings
https://source.android.com/devices/input/key-layout-files.html
There is also an annoying few seconds delay after pressing a key to wake up the keyboard and the device responding.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I assume that depends on the keyboard used. my NUU keyboard did connect when sliding out, not when the first key was pressed.
Taking account there was a small delay since the connection, because tasker had to wakeup and unlock the phone (if locked and/or sleeping) and to force the horizontal orientation (and optionally to swap the SW keyboard with something mechanical friendly like swiftkey or touchpal), I had no perceivable delay on the first key pressed.
P.S. Guys please resize a bit such huge images before posting them.
They break the forum layout using the classic skin (the yellow one)
The Solutor said:
It's been a while since I did that phone, but, assuming you're rooted you should be able to adjust the keylayout to your lickings
https://source.android.com/devices/input/key-layout-files.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's a good pointer, I'll look into that. It would be good to remap the keys without using External Keyboard Helper.
The Solutor said:
I assume that depends on the keyboard used. my NUU keyboard did connect when sliding out, not when the first key was pressed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately the keyboard I was trying doesn't seem to have any kind of sensor that would know when the keyboard was slid out or not.
I followed Flash-A-Holic's great example and built a cover for Huawei P8 Lite.
Here's the process:
http://symbioosi.blogspot.fi/2016/11/how-to-physical-keyboard-for-huawei-p8.html
Scorpizoid said:
I followed Flash-A-Holic's great example and built a cover for Huawei P8 Lite.
Here's the process:
http://symbioosi.blogspot.fi/2016/11/how-to-physical-keyboard-for-huawei-p8.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you just apply a back case from another casing to the bluetooth keyboard of a slider case?
Super happy to have found this thread. I'm using my Motorola Droid 4, but it's lost its GPS antenna, and I'm really tempted to jump at this Moto G4 Plus... Just held it in-store at Best Buy, and it feels massive, something I wouldn't type on with just one hand holding it. I just want landscape QWERTY keyboard functionality!
Scorpizoid said:
I followed Flash-A-Holic's great example and built a cover for Huawei P8 Lite.
Here's the process:
http://symbioosi.blogspot.fi/2016/11/how-to-physical-keyboard-for-huawei-p8.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After being disappointed by Blackberry's attempts at a physical keyboard, I'm back to strongly considering this approach. Your blog post is a great inspiration for finally upgrading my Motorola Photon Q LTE to something that can run something more than Android 4.1.2...
What's the most powerful android phone in roughly the right form-factor for this keyboard case? I see you're ripping off the iPhone case part and attaching a proper case for the Huawei, and I'd do similar, but I'd want the whole thing to be vaguely the right shape. Like, attaching this keyboard to a Pixel XL would just be silly, but there aren't that many android phones around the size of the iPhone 6/7.