Remember when phones used to have physical buttons? Yeah, okay – some of them still do – my point is there was a time when putting a full-blown QWERTY physical keyboard on a phone was regarded as something premium. Take the Nokia Communicator for example. Maybe big touchscreen devices sort of killed the physical keyboard dream, but not for this British startup. Behold the Astro Slide phone!
The phone is the brainchild of the UK-based company Planet Computers and aims to elevate mobile computing to a whole new level. There’s a successful Indiegogo campaign dedicated to the phone and first deliveries are expected around March 2021.“Astro Slide is the first 5G smartphone with a keyboard and is the fastest 5G device announced to date. Astro’s revolutionary RockUp slider hinge transforms the powerful 6.39″ touchscreen smartphone into a mini laptop, featuring Planet’s signature tactile backlit keyboard,” reads the description on the Indiegogo page.