Quick little hands on demo

Full CNET Article

Looking good Chen! Congrats

Thank you for the link. That was me (the hands) in the video demoing the Mod.

Great hands! The mod is cool too

Nice job! Nice to see an idea carried through to fruition. A rare thing nowadays!

Chen, I've been watching more videos on youtube about your slider mod, to get a feel for how robust the mechanism is. I have to say it looks great in all of the videos!

One thing that surprises me is how in so many of the videos, the youtuber puts the phone on the table and makes like they are going to type on it like a proper keyboard - very few people actually try thumb typing whilst holding it in both hands.

Did most people that came to your booth do that? Were people discouraged from handling it, or has everyone just forgotten how to use a slider? It's bizarre!

This is a nice spot. Actually I had the same question...

The purpose of this keyboard is handheld, like all the previous sliders, it's meant to type with both thumbs while holding in hands, like I did in the CNET video. And the ability to tilt the screen is to make the device a bit like N950/E7 to make a comfort typing angle, and can make it a stand on the table to watch videos. (I always did when I eat at home alone)

But to my surprise, a lot people perhaps the majority somehow thinks this is a mini-PC and complaining about the keyboard being too small for 10 fingers and not as enough key depth as PC keyboard. This even includes some editors from big named websites, such as Android Central. It's quite frustrating as I did tried to make the keys comfortable and make overall as thin as possible, but they expect to have something similar to a PC.

My personal speculation is that iPhone has dominated the market for so long, the real landscape slider that was released last time was around 2011/2012 and there wasn't a single successor since then. People started their smartphone life directly from "all screen" phones, might not have an understanding of how landscape slider works and how to use them.

Plus Moto Z is significantly bigger the last slider, (5.5" compared with 4.3" Photon Q), which may break the boundary of being a "phone" and might belong to "PC" category in their expectation.

I'm not complaining or disrespect them, they have actually brought up a very interesting point of view, which I haven't thought of myself.

And it's to my surprise to see landscape slider now becomes an absolute rarity and niche nowadays, and a significant amount of users don't know how to use them properly. And users started with iphone will probably never know the benefit of a landscape QWERTY and how to use them.

I wasn't at the CES booth all the time, but in my limited time there I have already explained a few times that it's meant for hand held.

Reminds me of a comment from IGG: It's like a vegetarian reviewing a BBQ Joint unfortunately.

One more question. My old iPhone 5 is getting too junky and I must replace my main phone. Of course I want to change it for Moto Z2 Play, but I want to ask - Will you manage to release the keyboard BEFORE Z3 series, which will be relased as last gen, in june? Or better wait for Z3 series and buy another junky phone for this few months?

Thanks for reply.

According to Moto's previous releasing schedule they will likely release a new flagship this coming June as well, and the rumoured "Z3" will likely have an edge-to-edge screen according to recent leaks. I don't work for Moto so these are all my speculations.

The Keyboard Mod will likely be hitting market on April because of the coming Chinese New Year, production will start around end of Feb onwards, and considering logistics April will be a reliable time. So that's before the Z3.

Z2 Play is probably the best overall option for its price and features. I have both Z2 Play and Force performance wise Force isn't significantly better (I don't play games) If you don't mind a mediocre camera than Z2 Play will be a good choice.

I found some informations about Snapdragon 636 - it's a monster if you compare it to 626 which is in Z2 Play. I will try to wait for new models announcement, few completely new standards and much more powerful DSP is worth of it.

Of course keyboard will be waiting for new phone from April

A few backers has already received their products.