Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

Because my TOHKBD is currently 4000 km away from me. :D

Thanks mr_pingu, excellent news.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Big thanks for the pointer this post is rather interesting.
(Also we could point to XWayland that is Xserver running on top of a Wayland compositor, so you can use X11 apps on a Wayland server.
But I have personnally NO experience whatsover with this kind of stacks)

The Bulgarian guys of Olimex have toyed with modem on AllWinner, both in their blogs, and as an add-on module for their AllWinner boards.
But indeed, it's a separate chip, kind of the same solution used by old OMAP based smartphones (early iPhone-s, early Pre-s back in the Palm era, various OpenMoko boards and the current Pyra),
which might be an advantage for some cases (the modem definitely won't hack your whole phone in qualcomm's "Modem-as-a-Northbridge"-style)
but is a clear drawback in terms of physical space (just compare the clunkiness of Pyra, or OpenMoko to similarly-featured phones back then)

(Though I've personnally never felt the need for- , nor even understood the logic of smartphones so thin you could cut cheese with them)

BTW: Olimex seems to do quite some AllWinner PCB designs (including some do-it-yourself laptop kits), so they might be available as potential contact with questions regarding the feasibility a potential AllWinner phone PCB.

Any chance that this connection could expose lanes that could be useful for 3rd party hackers ? (I2C? UART? SPI? ... dream... USB ?) or are these connections extremely keyboard specific (a bunch of GPIO acessing some grid-chip with no re-usable protocol).

(And again: does the PCB have lanes/contacts for wireless charging like lots of modern phones ?)

...or unless you want to make a High-DPI printer for Polaroid film.

(I'm joking, but Fujifilm have exactly done that : a Wifi-enabled device that internally uses a High-DPI OLED screen to transfer picture from your smartphone to their "Instax" brand of Polaroid film)

My opinion exactly.

SFOS bring a gorgeous UI together with access to android Apps.

It's hard for a new system to gain market without being able to tap into the over-massive App ecosystems (and with Apple being completely closed, that only leaves Android on the table).

That was the downfall of webOS (Palm bet on the wrong horse. Back when they started working on webOS and Pre phones, PalmOS used to be a big player, so they made sure to have their device compatible with legacy PalmOS apps, by featuring the "Classic" emulator.
But by the time the device finally shipped, PalmOS has more or less died as a platform and Android was the app ecosystem most are using. There was some attempt to get Myriad on webOS, but HP shut down the whole webOS platform and sold it to LG before we got AlienDalvik on webOS)..

That is also the reason of the slow decline of Windows on mobile phone (Microsoft hoped that their "Metro" platform could become a 3rd relevant ecosystem next to Apple and Android, but despite their well known name, they didn't succeed.
Though at some point of time they realized they need to tap into one of the larger ecosystems, but ultimately failed.
WSL - Windows Service for Linux - is what they managed to salvage out of these attempts).

The fact that you can also run Android Apps and thus can still use your phone for all the things for which companies didn't bother to make a QML app (e.g.: my local Car Sharing company) is a big reason why it managed to survive.

This is doing to be difficult
As your booloader is unlocked (which BTW is very good),
nothing would prevent someone to buy a cheaper andoid phone,
get a more expensive SFOS phone and copy the BTRFS (or LVM EXT4) root partition from one phone to another.

I think you should mostly count on :
- SFOS fans being more or less honnest. (It's a small community, I think most of the SFOS fans would be happy to give money for SFOS support)
- or alternatively sell the Android-only version with a locked bootloader that prevents non-authorised OS installation (as most non-power users don't need to replace OSes, I'm not sure it they mind.
That there are user who might want to experiment with their phone but hate SFOS and won't be happy to be forced to pay for SFOS)
- or last solution : sell all the phones at the same price (so there's no real incentive to get one but pirate the other). i.e.: the cost of development of SFOS isn't only spread accross the "power-user" edition of the phone, but accros all the buyers.
Bonus : a buyer can always legally switch to SFOS at a later point (by replacing the root partition)
Problem: some people might complain that their money gets to SFOS (Dave ? :-D )

Might explain why Palm (and then HP) went for portait orientation on their Phone with keyboards. (And blackberry before them).

...happy to be in one of the QWERTZ-keyboard using french speaking countries. :-D

Some people do it just for the LULZ, for **** and giggles.

Other also like to hack things and might have werid legitimate uses for installing full custom Linux on a phone (I certainly have done at some point in the past on my OpenMoko).

There are also people who would like to use software not ported to SFOS.
LibreOffice was mentionned above for productivity.
But it could also be emulators not ported to SFOS (e.g.: MAME).
Special remote access consoles (VNC, or even weirder : the Java applets for VNC that are used by some "lights-out" management like IPMI or Intel ME)
etc.

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

Or and one last hardware question :

You mentioned the back-facing cameras where the best that you could get.

(both are 13MP)

Do you know the physical size of the sensors ?
(Maybe not 2/3" as in dedicated camera an a few Nokia and Sony camera/phone hybrids)

And what is the optical part / lens ?

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

Thanks again for your information! It is very helpful! And I will leave my comment later...

To this question yes I will give the detail specs later, perhaps with the compont number and you can look into options tinkering with it. :)

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

I never asked myself that question before, never having looked at a keyboard when abroad in another French speaking country...
So now, after looking at wikipedia, I know that there are about as many QWERTZ variants as there are countries using them, each replacing the special keys to their own missing symbols... and same for other mainstream layouts.

So, when one think that QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY, BEPO, Dvorak, ... are a nightmare, it gets worst when you delve into the details and see that each layout has variants... :eek:

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

True, although I think QWERTZ is about as bad diverse as it gets, don't think AZERTY has so many different layouts depending on countries. One more reason to migrate to QWERTY US_International! :rolleyes:

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

Its beautiful. :eek:

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

Sailfish is being hailed by some as radically different but I have always found it disappointing how much Jolla tries to mimic Android. I guess those who think it is "so different" have never seen something really different, like e.g. Maemo.

Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder. I say, give the user the option.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Some interesting ideas in this post, but please don't do this! How many "non-power users" do you think will buy the device? Bit patronising to assume people who use Android aren't "power users", and plenty of Android users like to use custom ROMs!


Just ask people to pay for the image,

or

talk to Jolla about shipping the open source parts of SFOS and adding the option to buy AD and the other proprietary bits as an app in the store. Jolla has been talking about paid apps in the store for ages, implementing it now could be useful for the xperia port as well as this project.

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

As far as i know, the iPhone Plus-models (5,5") allow the user to use the phone in landscape mode, with splitscreen support.

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

Actually, Palm handled it nicely back in the PalmOS era (both with the hardware foldable keyboards and the on-screen one that can be used instead of Graffiti) :
The keyboard layout is US,
but nearly any additional symbol is available by using "Alt"+key (and those Alt combo follow the same layout as the on-screen display of alternative chars).


By the way, I hope that this upcoming device will easily work with rotation in any orientation. (Or at least can easily be patched to)
I would love using it in "reverse portrait" (with the connectors on the top, like current jolla device).
Useful to plug in earphone (or a powerbank) when in the pocket.

Also doesn't require a dock when charging on a desk while propped up (e.g.: to use with a full sized bt keyboard)

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

For now, I suggest buying a Droid 4 (xt894) and putting Sailfish OS on it.

The Jolla Store was just opened for it, and it's a fabulous device with hardware keyboard.

Cameras work, GPS seems to work, bluetooth file sending/receiving works, phone calls/SMS work....

Could use a better keyboard map to include more symbols and make use of the SYM and OK keys...

CPU plenty fast, 1GB RAM is too small for SFDroid though.

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

I see that glass screen has been chosen but maybe we should rethink it. Glass screen have that beautiful property (every phone manufacturing company will agree) that they break really easily!

And a QWERTY slider can't be put in an extremely heavy duty case to prevent the screen from cracking.

Maybe we should rather go for a plastic screen, as the good ol' N900 had?

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

Just like the N900 has. FN + Ctrl brings up the symbol dialog box :)

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Even if it is unlikely you will receive a reply, isn't contacting the suppliers or direct surely worth the time expended?

(It's not just Samsung with a monopoly now: LG Display, BOE Display, Tianma, and AUO, are worth contacting.) And surely whether they ignore you or not - as you mentioned - depends on the numbers you require, which depends on the popularity of the crowdfunding phase, which depends on how appealing the product is, which depends on the features... so perhaps OLED display should be a "stretch goal"?

Purely due to the number of advantages* that AMOLED/OLED would bring (so it is worth not ruling it out, at least not yet).

*Those advantages you already know being:

• Usually slightly thinner display module than LED-backlit LCD (which is quite important in this project)
• White colour accuracy (less colour tint) in real world examples.
• Truer blacks, with inherently better contrast ratio
• Already have the ability to mod Sailfish to enable the LPM (Low Power Mode) status screen, mainly applicable to OLED screens.
• Burn-in is less of a problem with latest generation panels (although I never had that problem with my N9). Also, switching between portrait/landscape should naturally mitigate burn-in somewhat.

On the camera specs:

Sensor: The Sony Exmor RS IMX378 (1/2.3", 12.2MP, 1.55μm cell size) would be the current acceptable size/performance compromise for me. Obviously this will probably be too high-end and expensive for your target price. (IMX260, IMX333, IMX362 would be possible second choices.)

I personally wouldn't bother with the dual rear cameras. No dual rear camera phone has yet matched the 'large sensor' camera phones in raw IQ (Nokia Pureview 808 or Panasonic CM1) despite what some benchmark websites claim.

Much more important than 'dual rear camera' for me would be: Addition of a physical shutter release button on the bottom right side of the phone in portrait mode (top right in landscape) which many phones do not have.


The full list of priorities for the rear camera for me would be: Large sensor (1/2.3 inch or larger); low MP count ~12 MP; single rear camera; f2.2 or faster aperture lens; physical shutter release button; on-sensor phase-detect AF; BSI sensor or stacked BSI sensor.

(Front camera is far less important for me.)

Great project by the way!! Nice renderings too, keep up the great work.

Thanks!

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

All of the variants of keyboards might prove to be a sticking point to a lot of folks unfortunately.

Heck, I'd even go for a blank keyboard and let me label it - novel idea, not ideal I know.

Regardless, thank you for sharing these updates. I hope that many of us can place aside our petty squabbles and not place you in the precarious situation of where you have to cater to every keyboard like/dislike at the risk of losing a sale because of inflexibility.

Good luck on your endeavors.

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

Personally I'm fine even with wrong labeled keyboard as long as there are enough keys to be remapped :).

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

Offset keys aren't a good solution for a thumb typing keyboard as Kabouik explained quite well.

A quick google search reveals that mostly early landscape sliders like the T-Mobile G1 or the LG KS360 used them. I own a G1 and typing is very uncomfortable. Almost all later phones have the keys stacked on each other like our beloved N900. The Droid 4 has them shifted only very slightly.

So it would suggest not to imitate a keyboard from a much larger device but to use the solution which we know works well for thumb typing.

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

Funny, I actually naturally put my Jolla C upside down in my pocket all the time because I find it more convenient to reach it and then twist the wrist to look at the screen, except when I have to keep it up because of jack/earplugs, and in that case I find it less convenient. :D Chen's device will be perfect for me in that regard, always upside down in the pocket.

But in any case, I agree with you, patches to allow full rotation cannot hurt and they give flexibility to users with different preferences.

I think the hardware shutter button should not be a problem if the phone comes with Sailfish. We can already use volume key as shutter release on the Jolla phones, and this phone will inevitably have volume keys as well. Admittedly, volume keys are not ideally located on the phone since they tend to be on the top left when the phone is held in landscape mode, but this is still a good compromise if adding another button is too difficult.

The camera itself is not an selling point for me, it will not rival the cameras or lenses I use when I really want to take photos which means I will always feel frustrated even with the best phone camera if I only have this at hand when I really want to take pictures. Usually bad image quality is fine for me as I use phones just for souvenirs and actually high resolution would just eat SD card space for no real benefit in my case (therefore I agree on the low pixel count on a bigger sensor), but of course I can't tell better camera would hurt, as long as it does not increase the price tag too much. I also understand that it can be a significant marketing argument, not only for people who don't own other cameras but also for photographers who don't always carry their professional camera with them, and it has proven rewarding for previous "camera-phones" on the market. As you mentioned, it really depends on how much it impacts the final device price.

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

And btw... what is the price? 400? 600? 1000? (euros)

Do i have to sell my car? Or house?

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

No please no...

My target is to fit your 400 EU tier, definitely not planning to be above 600.

Price will also be effected by the choice of SW (different licence cost), the components price around MP date etc.

And also our quantity won't be so big, so our component price will be higher than those big guys get...:mad:

But I am confident that it won't go beyond 600. I want everyone who loves it can get one. (This is the reason we are not using AMOLED or Flagship SoC, which will make final price easily a few hundred more...)

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

Which currency?

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

I'm following Catbus so it's EURO. (Also updated on the post)

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

Just take my money!

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

Take it twice if it's 400.

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

Alternatively you could just buy a high quality screen protector.
(Random example : Skinomi are good in my experience and can rather easily make pre-cut custom design, e.g.: for chen's phone)


Correction: a keyboard slider can't be put in an extremely heavy duty backcover / phonecase.

It can but put without any problem in a holster / camera case.

I've been using holsters (normally designed for compact camera) by Hama and Case Logic successfully all the way back from my Palm Pre up to now with my Jolla phone.

They are durable enough that I can safely use them when I go skiing (My week-end hobby is being a ski instructor at the local university).

Though now I'll have to find one which fits chen's 5.5 inch monster.
(The current biggest from Hama is designed for the samsung camera/phone hybrid and only barely fits my 4.5 inch Jolla)
(I think I've seen cases from moleskin that feature attachement points that could be used on the belt).

On PalmOS, it was more :
Alt-Z is "é", Alt-X is "è", Alt-C is "ê", Alt-V is "ë", etc.
Single 2-key combo for most symbols

(It's Palm's webOS that also included a dialog box like the N900.
Sym + letter brings a dialog with all the diacritics for that letter)


Though, SFOS being a Linux, it should probably also be possible to implement a standard UNIX "compose" key :

Compose + e + ' = "é"
Compose + c + s = "š"
Compose + t + h = "þ"
etc.

Note you don't press them as a 3 keys combo, but as 3 keys sequence in order.
It's a bit more cumbersome that a 2 keys combo, but at least it's entirely in-keyboard, you do not need to move your fingers to an on screen dialog.

(As your current PC keyboard probably lacks an actual compose key, check on wikipedia or google which combo is used by you Mac OS or Linux disto. In my case it's Right shift+ Right Control)

If by random chance, one of the OLED manufacturer accepted to provide you a 5.5 inches screen within an acceptable price range, that would be awesome...

(Still I'm paying your future indiegogo even if it's an IPS)

Note: SFOS supports using the volume buttons for shutter if the camera app is open.

Now, regarding a dedicated "shutter" button :
Bonus points if somebody manage to write a patch that :
- if the camera app isn't running
- immediately dumps the content of the sensor in a temp file
- starts the camera app with that file taken as a picture.

(i.e.: being able to instantly capture an interesting moment, right on the instant when the shutter is pressed, even if the camera isn't running).

I second this :
the larger the sensor, the better the quality of the image. (No matter the number of pixels).

(Then second most important things would be quality of the optical part/len).

I think it all boils down to the quality of the keyboard itself.
All the keyboards I've been testing have been "offset" type:

HTC G1 was "meh" in my short experience (my brother used one)
- mostly sort of ultra-flat island keyboard / bordering on the quality of a membrane keyboard.

HTC Dream Z "meh" also (again my brother's)
- same kind of not very responsive keys. also with age, by now, the response of some key has become horrendous.

On the other hand :

Palm Prē and HP Pre³ (my daily driver for long time until HP closed the servers a couple of after having sold to LG) :
- gum drop keyboard (the same kind also found on Black berries, but without the "fret board")
Very nice to the touch, keys very easy to find by touch only, switches are still very responsive even after years of abuse.


So, for chen's phone, in my opion, the biggest influence won't be "stacked / rectilinear grid" vs "offset like a laptop".
But quality of the switching mechanism.

Even the foldable keyboard I own are more quality-dependent.
I still one a few of the original "stowaway" / "think outside" (including a bluetooh one I still use nowadays with my jolla) :
built quality is wonderful, the key still works marvelously even today, even if parts of the case has suffered damage after all this years (the battery cell is naked, cover is broken).

Meanwhile, I've also bought a more recent "Geyes gk108" USB foldable.
It has the same "4-parts W shape" as the older ones (I think I've read somewhere that they've re-used the same molds).
But the choice of component is definitely worse :
key mecanism is much more sloppy, some keys aren't as responsive as others.
(But I still use it sometimes with my Android tablet, because the 10 inch bluetooth keyboard that came with the magnetic case broke).

400-600 € ?

Consider me sold !
(And very likely my brother too, though probably for the android version).

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

Please, don't make a phone that implicitly requires a holster or case or screen protector. These things are perfect for people who think they are perfect, horrendous for people who think they are horrendous, and there is no proper way to reconcile these two groups. It's just a matter of preferences and they can hardly be discussed. Just don't make a device assuming everyone would use such protections (and they would still provide increased protection for those who want to use them, but won't be mandatory).

I hate the screen protector on my Jolla C, yet I have no choice. I don't think this is a good design to make it obligatory because the screen itself is not scratch-resistant. I hate rubber case on my N9, but I did not have to use it (acceptable protection trade-off), this was optimal.

As for keyboard diacritics, I agree that an equivalent of Fn+Sym to show special characters on screen as on the N900 would be good, but this does solve the real issue if you need diacritics every two words in your language. It's perfect when you need the special characters every now and then, not more. But it's still good as it shows all characters, so it definitely has advantages. But for everyday typing, there is nothing like the 2-key or 3-key combinations that DrYak just described, or even better, dead key followed by a character, without compose key, like:

' + e = é
` + a = à
" + o = ö
^ + e = ê

This is how us_international works (both Linux and Windows), and it also allows using diacritics on capital letters, which is good. Basically with this, in French you just need one key to map ` and you can type every French special character with dead keys, since ', " and ^ already exist on every keyboard layout anyway, even simplified keyboard-slider layouts. You'd need Alt+key combinations for æ, œ and ç though, unless new dead key combinations like ` + c = ç are created (this should be a non-issue if layouts are flexible as they are on desktop OSes).

Of course us_international does not mean us_french, so I can also type things I don't need in my mother tongue using the same system, like åøóßš, which ultimately reduces the need for extra keys in every different language. Nonetheless, this only works well for people who are used to qwerty, so unless they are already using it or determined to migrate to qwerty regardless of their native layout, it will be hard to make everyone happy. I just hope it will be possible to customize the software side of the available layouts this way so dead keys can be used just like on Linux or Windows.

About grid vs offset keyboard, I admit having no experience with thumb typing on an offset keyboard but the discussion shows that the final decision will be hard and important. Overall I would still naively think that there is a reason why most thumb-keyboards were arranged as grids, but to be honest a lot of these keyboards were crap anyway. I'm just afraid the same with offset would have felt even weirder. Livermorium may have the experience there, let's see what they think is best for thumbs and blind-typing (but keep thumbs and blind-typing with minimal movements in mind Chen please).

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

Yes, enough keys! Like ASDFGHJKLÖÄ <Enter>
Several "extra" keys to be remapped will make life easier without special key combinations.

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

Qwerty
Qretyz
Scandic
Chinese
Blank keys

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Wot, I did not even know such things existed! :eek:
I thought all phone cameras only have contrast-based AF...
Is it in any way comparable to the separate phasedetect sensors used in real (SLR) cameras?

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Look up dual-pixel technology on canon DSLR. Sony and Fujifilm uses it on their system-camera's too. (See Fuji X-T2 or Sony A7 for example). Pretty neat technique placing phase-detect pixels on the sensor.
If you look at the 5000$ Sony A9 it is comparablr to the most advanced DSLR separate PD-AF systems.

That said, contrast detect have come a long way too. Optimisations and improvements to the algorithm made it significantly faster than it used to be.

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

Holy moly, I wasn't in this thread for a while... :eek:

Well Chen I have to say i'm totally flashed.

When I read the initial post, I thought, wow that's great news. If it gets Sailfish and open boot loader, I will definitely get one.

Now I entered this thread again and had to read, that the device is getting a 5.5" screen.

I have to say I was shocked reading that. But after working me through the whole thread, seeing this very very very nice teaser pics (I expected a real monster not such a sleek and beautiful design :cool:) and reading specs, I 've overcome the shock and you can count me definitely in, with at least one device.

Of course I'll also try to convince my GF having a sleek 5.5" device with a proper keyboard. So maybe I will order two...

One question, is there already a raw production schedule?

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

Regarding the sleekness; is it not too much of a good thing?
I would not mind a hefty device if it packs a bigger battery... :D

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

Yeah...

A friend got a new laptop from work. Made by one famous fruit company. It is about 0.05 mm thick and looks very sleek. BUT - open it and... a tiny keyboard, almost lost in the middle of a vast empty space. No function keys. The whole thing weighs like a bag of bricks which, combined with its thinness, means that it cuts into your hand when you carry it. He hates it with all his heart.

Sleek but next to unusable ;)

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

Yes sirs :D I am aware of the importance the key depth and battery size.

I know that people interested in this device wouldn't care much about the overall thickness anyway.

And adding thickness can have various benefits, adding battery, protection (maybe a rugged shell) etc. But I want to control it to a level that it doesn't be so bulky and feel stupid.

We already have 3500mAh here and the thickness will be controlled below the N950's

IMHO because if its size, making it thicker than that will feel chunky and like a brick, which is opposite to "Lauta"'s beautiful spirit :p

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

that's the current behaviour on Linux desktop.

Capital Ç is done either :
- with caps lock,
- dead ' then C
- compose then "," then C

(and digraphs are done with compose + individual letters. i.e.: œ is compose, o, e)

Regarding grid vs. offset : I might prefere offset slightly out of habbit, but grid would still be okay.

Build quality is what would be critical for me.

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

To be honest in my opinion for those "thumb" keyboards it doesn't make a difference for grid or offset, it feels the same. Maybe because I'm not a Latin-based native speaker. I actually prefer grid because it looks nicer and in order.

But my IGG supporters seem to be 100% prefer the offset layout (Maybe from Moto's previous experience?) rather than grid.

I'm wondering does that make a real difference?

Building quality will be controlled as the same industrial standard for other brands in the factory.

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

I had to look this up - to save people the effort, the N950 was 14mm thick (according to our wiki).

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

I think my preference goes for grid keyboard like Chen, but because I believe I'm just more efficient and more comfortable at typing blindly with my thumbs than on an offset keyboard. It just feels more natural for me when thumb-typing. Not sure if it's because of long experience with the N900 or because the design is actually more adapted, but using thumbs on an offset keyboard always felt awkward to me. The unnecessary complicated layout made muscle memory trickier, and tactile-feedback was sometimes insufficient to know where my thumbs were when moving them on the keypad (but again, maybe due to less experience).

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrYak (Post 1532063) that's the current behaviour on Linux desktop. Capital Ç is done either : - with caps lock, - dead ' then C - compose then "," then C (and digraphs are done with compose + individual letters. i.e.: œ is compose, o, e)

Ha, I'm using it every day and I did not even know I could type ç with a dead key with the default layout. :D I am using Alt Gr + , and it gives me ç (or Ç if I press Shift simultaneously). I'm using deadkeys for every other accented characters, and æ is already on Alt Gr + z, and œ on Alt Gr + k (shift works as well for capital letters), but I may have customized those Alt Gr combinations myself, I don't remember. But that's the point: flexibility on key combinations/dead keys just like on desktop could make most users happy.

Re: The new QWERTY device project
 

The current estimation based on structural design is around 12mm thick. And we have some room of change. ;)