Two way slider, allowing to have both, numeric keypad and QWERTY keyboard in a mobile phone is nothing new these days.
Sony Ericsson and Nokia tried to patent their take on it recently. Some rumors say that Sony Ericsson P5i may actually feature one, and Samsung already has a two way slider in an officially announced, if not yet shipping, Samsung F520.
Still, the idea looks great on paper, and everyone is trying to come up with a way for this set-up to work as great in a real life too. Here’s another take on imagining a perfect dual slider by Nokia:
In a patent application called “A layered mobile device”, Nokia is actually thinking about a triple slider, with the display and keyboard/keypad “sandwiched” on one another.
The keypad part would slide in two directions just like on current Nokia N95, revealing numeric keypad on one side and music/game controls on another. Then, there would be another layer with QWERTY keyboard sliding sidewise underneath a the keypad.
Or, the layered set-up may even allow you to use both numeric keypad and QWERTY keyboard at once:
Although I doubt the utility of this particular design.
Still, looks interesting, but it’s just an idea and patent application. Let’s see if they’ll be able to come up with a real device for that. Nokia N99 perhaps?
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