Having a look at the FP6, it seems like the modular nature of the phone should allow for some interesting mods. As many others, I am in the market for a Linux phone with a physical keyboard. This is admittedly a niche market. So far, the best option I had the opportunity to use is the Fxtec Pro1. That company had major issues getting their phone to market, causing them to stop selling them altogether. They also had quality control issues (my device’s keyboard had ghost input issues, which is quite frustrating). There are other phones with physical keyboards available on the market (Unihertz, Planet Computers, and I guess the Clips thing), but they are nowhere near what a FP6 with a physical keyboard mod could offer.
I have a personal preference for horizontal keyboards with a slider mechanism. At a glance. It basically would require a thicker frame (that’s usually the main downside of these kind of phones), with a mechanism raising the screen to reveal a physical keyboard (see how the Pro1 does it). The screen is still connected to the rest of the phone by a ribbon, like it currently is, albeit a longer one. There’s no competition for horizontal slider phones at the moment. An official mod for this at a cost of under 200E would still place it within what I believe to be an acceptable price (yay for the complete lack of competition, I guess).
But yeah, I doubt Fairphone would consider the potential market worth investing into and so I’m stuck with hacky solutions. I would love to know if there is any way to get a screen ribbon extension? It wouldn’t be great, but lacking official support, a Bluetooth keyboard should be able to be tinkered to feed off the phone’s power (data without Bluetooth seems unlikely though).
The same idea occurred to me. Typing this on an Apple Magic Keyboard connected to FP5 over Bluetooth. Good for long texts. Switch apps with Command+Tab, usual web type navigation of clickable elements …
That is indeed part of the solution, if implemented by users directly. Here is an example of this done on another phone. It’s a very nice design, but far from ideal, given the separate battery and the weight being on the top part (not where you hold to write). The Fairphone’s characteristics should allow for a better solution: something between the screen and the rest of the phone. Unlike most phones, it’s not so unexpected for tinkering to happen there. As far as I can tell, the main challenge is the screen’s ribbon. It needs to be longer and I don’t know how difficult some extender ribbon would be to procure.
I guess this thread is mostly venting. I don’t really expect much of a solution. It’s just frustrating to see how close this phone is to being an incredible Linux hacker phone (a la Nokia N900). Fairphone could sell a mod pack with a slightly taller frame, the hinge mechanism, a keyboard, a ribbon extender, and an alternative USB module (probably needed for a clean connection of the keyboard). That would open to an admittedly niche market which is used to paying a lot more for those kind of phones.
A USB connection with the DIY approach like Fairberry’s would be amazing, but that’s a lot more expertise than what I have. I guess at that point it involves ordering custom-built hardware pieces anyway, so the ribbon extender could be obtained the same way. Just a real shame there can’t be a clean, official solution.
If you’re thinking of it as an accessory only a small portion of existing customers would buy, then yeah, it doesn’t make sense to do so. The thing is, people looking for a keyboard phone are not existing customers: it’s a different market. A small one also, but not one currently buying Fairphones. That mod is not a ludicrous amount of research and development either.
Look, I don’t really feel like I should be trying to argue on the Fairphone forums that a niche market can be worth exploring when it can be done for cheap. I’m not expecting to find many people interested in such a mod here (once again: it’s a separate niche, not the niche Fairphone currently targets… those who are interested aren’t here), so of course most people here would consider it useless and a waste of time. Just felt it was worth posting originally in case someone else did the work or in the extremely unlikely case someone from Fairphone saw this as something worth considering.
I also would love a physical keyboard on the Fairphone, like the above mentioned and formerly beloved N900. I already sent a request to the “Clicks” Keyboard company and asked for a Fairphone 6 version - the more the better Although probably a unrealistic wish…
I’ve seen someone harvest a Clicks case to add a physical keyboard to their iPhone mini, and I’ve been thinking how cool it would be if you could cut out the keyboard from the case, and instead of putting it below the phone and making it awkwardly long, put it over the bottom half of the screen in a custom 3D-printed case. I’m preeeeeeeeeetty sure you could make Android use only the uncovered part of the screen to display stuff if you were rooted.
something like what Samsung used to make for the S6 Edge+, except much cooler of course
Although probably a unrealistic wish…
