Fxtec’s Pro1 smartphone sports a sliding keyboard like the good old days

Phones with physical keyboards have long been usurped by traditional glass slab designs, and more recently foldables.

But one company (besides BlackBerry) is hanging onto that QWERTY life.

UK firm Fxtec at MWC 2019 unveiled its Pro1 slider, landscape and QWERTY keyboard smartphone.

The device is a stark departure from what you usually see from the likes of BlackBerry, with a predominant landscape orientation and a 5.99 inch 2160×1080 AMOLED screen. The 64-key angled keyboard too itself slides below the screen, and is backlit.

Internally, there are a few quirks. The phone uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 chipset — a two-year old flagship chip — mated to 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. It also comes with a hybrid SIM/microSD card slot.

The battery’s pretty small compared to other flagships at 3200mAh, while the phone also sports a side-mounted fingerprint sensor and 3.5mm headphone jack.

Finally, camera duties are performed by a 12MP rear snapper made by Sony, with f/1.8 aperture, alongside a fixed focus 5MP sensor. More interestingly, the phone features a camera shutter button, something we’ve not seen in ages on a smartphone. Up front, there’s an 8MP selfie camera.

The Pro1 runs a near-stock version of Android 9.0 Pie too.

As for the price, it’ll fetch $649 per device from its official website, as is expected to start shipping around mid-year.

Feature image: Fxtec