I dont know that Id want it as an every day phone, but it could save me from having to bring a laptop everywhere. All in all, sounds very nice. It would be great if other, more up-to-date distributions, such as Ubuntu or Manjaro, could be made to work on the Cosmo for those of us of a more adventurous nature. Debian Buster can be a very usable desktop system, and isnt terribly old, in relative terms. Its powered by a MediaTek Helio P70, an SoC released in 2018 with 4 Cortex-A73 cores at 2.1 GHz and 4 Cortex-A53 cores at 2.0 Ghz. 14 mpx or 20mpx or above gives you lots of cropping room and fine art prints for display can be bigger. This is a giant missed opportunity. The Cosmo Communicator clearly tries to appeal to the more nerdy, more enthusiast segment of the market, and in those markets, Android 9 (or even 10) in 2021 is simply not a very strong showing. I wanted a mini-laptop that was a real computer for the longest timethen the iPad came along and it satisfied a lot of that jones, but not all. The machine flips open and closes with satisfying force, and the keyboard features individually spaced scissor-switch keys with surprising amount of travel. Id prefer that to regular kde. But the keyboard Id want with keys I use more for cli work without crazy modifiers. I would rather today have a thin and light laptop. Basically, the next evolution of smartphone is going to give us more screen space, which means more typing space. Plus, they were just FUN. Aside from the cramped size, it comes very close to offering all the functionality of a regular keyboard, and while my personal typing style doesnt mesh well with it, the Planet team has done a great job given the constraints they were working in. The amazing pictures you see taken with some smartphone cameras are simply photos where the scene and lighting has been carefully chosen to fall well within the sweet spot of the camera. Yes, I know its crazy with all the fantastic games out there nowIve tried nearly every platform and lots of games on each, including the iPhone and iPad (and Android, hold your flames! 10mpx is very tight but gives you a little cropping room. The Android experience is generic thats a good thing and does exactly what youd expect from Android on a smartphone, and desktop Linux with KDE is just desktop Linux with KDE, albeit running on a pocketable mini-laptop without any compromises to what makes desktop Linux desktop Linux. A ten stop range removes a lot of these problems and you can take pictures in a wider variety of scenes and low light and blacks will look a lot better. Version 4 of the Linux image also introduces better support for the shortcut keys to control various aspects of the hardware, like WiFi, Bluetooth, and cellular. It runs perfectly well on the Cosmo, but Ubuntu Touch is clearly still in flux with pretty much no application support, and on top of that, it doesnt seem very well-suited for the form factor of the Cosmo it wants to be on generic glass slab phone, not on a tiny laptop. As it is now, some websites with large banners (such as Forbes.com) load awkward on a screen with so little vertical space. The Cosmo also supports both Sailfish OS and Ubuntu Touch. You might wonder if you can use the keyboard when thumb-typing. I hate having to treat ARM computers as disposable items because were dependent on ARM chipset manufacturers for updates . If you are more interested in a smartphone-first kind of design, you should probably take a look at Planets upcoming Astro Slide. The official Linux image for Cosmo also makes some special affordances for the device. It comes very close to a regular laptop, with only the lack of an integrated pointing device being a real issue. When closed, the device is thicker and heftier than most other smartphones, but theres a valid reason for that: open it up, and inside youll find a full QWERTY keyboard with real keys. Sadly, this version was released a few days before my fiancee and I had to go to the hospital to deliver our child, so I havent been able to test it quite yet. Dynamic range is effectively how well it handles light to dark. The better the specification of the camera the more forgiving the camera is and the less skill required to take a well exposed photograph. Since this is plain old Debian, pretty much anything in the Debian repositories will work, since ARM is a supported architecture. The main display has two giant black pillars next to it, but this never bothered me. To maintain quality you need a larger sensor size which is why digital SLRs or larger are valued by many. Although in this case, a copycat job may be the better word since no one at BlackBerry was involved. Biden And Xi Talk, But Not About The Global Economic Slowdown, Crypto Exchange Zipmex Seeks Bankruptcy Protection In Singapore As Crypto Crisis Spreads, Chinese Billionaire Jack Ma To Cede Control Of Fintech Giant Ant Group: WSJ, Chinese Grocery Startup Missfresh Faces Cashflow Crisis As Suppliers Protest, Asias Taper Tantrum 2.0 Bears Chinese Fingerprints, Chinas Zero Covid Mess Is Infecting Asias Economies, Huawei FreeBuds Pro 2 Review: Sonically Impressive, Xiaomi 12S Ultra Review: Large 1-Inch Sensor Works Wonders. The upcoming Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2, according to leaked promo images, can display a keyboard across half of its 7-inch unfolded screen. It would be nice if this was prettified rather than being an awkward slab of plastic. However a device like this would interesting since it could run the real deal. Sure, they havent backported all of KDE or Gnome (Im guessing Gnome may be a little more touch screen friendly? However, for now, youre stuck with a three year old version of Android. If photography plays a major role in your purchasing decision, Id highly suggest finding a review from someone with far, far more knowledge on this subject than I have. None of them are intrusive, but since they are set as system applications, they cannot be easily uninstalled either. Lets start with the Cosmo Communicator: as can be seen from photos, its form and function behaves more like a mini-sized laptop than a smartphone, but it can still make calls and do smartphone things like go on Instagram. Id like to play with one. This would make touchscreen keyboards far better to use. The secondary display Cosmo calls it the cover display ensures you dont have to open the phone to make calls or perform basic tasks, which makes it a more than worthwhile addition. Debian Buster has UAEthis thing has a pretty nice screenthis might just be the answer, if only I can find a suitable controller/joystick. Its not something I would buy. I did purchase a portable keyboard/mouse for my phone when I traveled to europe instead of toting a laptop. Granted, I am a very light typist who applies relatively little force to each key press, but I found that my key presses would often not register unless I applied what I would consider too much force. It pretty much supports every band under the sun, and obviously comes with WiFi (a/b/g/n/ac) and Bluetooth (5.0), GPS, NFC, and the usual complement of sensors. Is that even a thing under development? Fortunately, this machines runs Android (the outdate version 9, however), and everything in Android is customizable. Your positive review notwithstanding, they wont be getting another picocent of my money, because I was burned the first time I gave them some. While I wouldnt want to use it as my main phone, I also wouldnt want to use anything else for writing python in the park. But after a day of training my muscle memory, I eventually was able to type on this keyboard faster and more accurately than I could on a standard smartphone touchscreen keyboard. The software powering the display is managed and updated independently from Android itself, so it can also be used in other operating systems such as Linux. This British company does not just focus on building Android smartphones with keyboards they take the concept a step further and gun for the iconic Psion devices from the 90s. My suggestion would to mark these as regular applications, so users can more easily uninstall them, without having to resort to adb. My biggest want would be aesthetics. Taking a handful of pictures outside in good light and a few indoors should be enough to have a reasonable clue. Anybody who has ever handled a Psion Series device from the 90s will recognise the look and feel of the hinge right away, and the design has held up incredibly well. Digital doesnt look as aesthetically pleasing as film when it comes to handling brightness or low light so you have very little wiggle room. My unit came preinstalled not only with Android and desktop Linux, but also Ubuntu Touch. The Cosmo sounds like a nice upgrade on the Gemini. The secondary display which sits on the lid on the outside is a 1.91 OLED touchscreen. But considering the Titan is priced at around $450, that makes the average cameras a lot easier to accept. Im still *pissed* at them for their lousy support on the Gemini. Part of it is that modern games require such a huge investment of timemost Amiga games could be picked up in minutes, even the complicated ones. I just got my Psion 5mx professionally repaired last week since the screen ribbon had failed. Id think it would be very annoying to have a keyboard in the way if you use the phone as a camera? You can also make calls from this screen, use a pincode to log in, and so on. The Titan is a rugged phone with a keyboard. The thing is sitting useless in my cabinet upstairs, because it is thoroughly unusable. The layout will take some getting used to, but thats to be expected with any new keyboard, especially one in such an exotic form factor. Ive never spent so much on a phone though. Other than the few additional applications, this is a pretty much stock installation of Android, but it does come with one massive downside that I simply cannot ignore: its Android 9.0. Digital doesnt look as aesthetically pleasing as film when it comes to handling brightness or low light so you have very little wiggle room. Its form factor and design are closer to a small laptop than a traditional smartphone, and many of the compromises youll run into stem from this design decision. However, in late 2020 it may not make sense because we are just about to enter the age of foldable phones. Unfortunately Im fairly price sensitive, which is why I cant always have nice things, haha. The outside screen seems to turn on at random and drain the battery unnecessarily. To this day I have absolutely no use for 14MP digital photos anyways. And the 16-bit graphics lend themselves to a small screen Packed with a solid 6GB of RAM, an ARM Mali-G72 MP3 GPU running at 900MHz, and 128GB of storage, the phone never feels slow or out of breath. Maybe it was the novelty? Theres always going to be compromises with a device in this form factor, since its impossible to design something within such constraints that is perfectly suited for every possible typing style, hand size, and so on. Picture quality needs a calibrated scene. A seven stop range means you can take a passably good photo. If the Cosmo Communicator was a clear tribute to the Psion PDA, then the Titan, from Shenzhen-based Unihertz can be called a tribute to the classic BlackBerry devices. With such a cramped space, youll always have to make compromises and hard choices, but I think the Planet team has made all the right choices. Back on the nexus tablet it worked kinda well, when the keyboard was working. Performance of the Linux image was great, and I did not notice any serious shortcomings. It allows you to perform basic smartphone tasks while the device is closed, and shows things like notifications, system toggles, and more. Moving on from the keyboard, the second aspect of the Cosmo that stands out is its hinge. All Rights Reserved, This is a BETA experience. I did wonder if a point device can be added somewhere to the design of the device, but honestly, I feel like any possible solution would be far too compromised to be useful. The review highlighted the main niggles. Did you try out kdeactive? The phone also supports wireless charging, which is impressive given thats a feature usually left off inexpensive phones. The desktop Linux support is a major selling point for the Cosmo, and if it supported a more up-to-date distribution, Id seriously consider this as its main operating system. Whatever the reason, you set your budget and full of hope and starry-eyed about all the possibilities, you go to your preferred electronics store (or carrier, if youre American) and as you scroll through the possible phones, your hopes are shattered and your heart sinks in your shoes. I do like it ish. 10mpx or above is about equiavlalent to film. The keyboards are individually spaced and offer good travel. The aspect ratio particularly annoys me, as a taller (vertically) 3:2 aspect ratio makes more sense on a work machine. Again, though, my hands are small, and if you have more average-sized hands, you might be able to thumb-type just fine. Rare niche x86 systems from decades ago tend to be better supported by mainline linux than ARM boards. Blackberrys surprise announcement last week that reports of its demise had been greatly exaggeratedthat it is, in fact, coming back in 2021 with a new 5G phonecame at an apt time for me, because I was in the midst of testing a pair of phones which I thought were relics: handsets with dedicated physical keyboards. Id readily give up most those pixels for a better low light sensor with less grainy pixels. As far as ports and connectivity goes, the Cosmo comes as fully packed as can be. I wouldnt necessarily have a problem using Debian Buster either, but Im not a fan of being dependent on an older kernel, especially an android kernel, which is probably not going to get updates. I know a lot of people are hyperfocused on making sure they get the latest and greatest SoC, but the reality is that by now, virtually any SoC from the last few years in the mid-range and up is more than capable enough to run Android, and the P70 is no exception. The specs here are also modest: The same MediaTek Helio P60 chip with 6GB of RAM, a 4.5-inch LCD screen in an unusual 1:1 aspect ratio, and 128GB of storage. It turns out you need to buy Cosmos own specific dongle to enable external display functionality, which is a bit of a nuisance. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations, Select the department you want to search in, Nokia 5310 Unlocked Cell Phone with 2 MP Camera, MP3/Video Player, MicroSD Slot--International Version with No Warranty (Red), Nokia E90 Communicator with QWERTZ Keypad (GSM only, No CDMA) Factory Unlocked 3G Cell Phone (Mocha), Nokia 6300 4G | Unlocked | Dual SIM | WiFi Hotspot | Social Apps | Google Maps and Assistant | Light Charcoal, FREE Shipping on orders over $25 shipped by Amazon, Nokia G10 | Android 11 | Unlocked Smartphone | 3-Day Battery | Dual SIM | US Version | 3/32GB | 6.52-Inch Screen | 13MP Triple Camera | Polar Night, Nokia C01 Plus | Android 11 (Go Edition) | Unlocked Smartphone | 2-Day Battery | Dual SIM | 2/32GB | 6.52-Inch Screen | Dark Blue, Nokia 3.4 | Android 10 | Unlocked Smartphone | 2-Day Battery | US Version | 3/64GB | 6.39-Inch Screen | Triple Camera | Charcoal, Nokia 225 | GSM Unlocked Mobile Phone | 4G | Black, LONG-CZ J9 World Mini Smallest Flip Mobile Phone Unlocked (Pink). Theres the F(x)tec Pro1 X, but it has tiny rubber keys instead of the more traditional full keys of the Cosmo, and costs 700 and is only in the pre-order phase at the moment. Caveat emptor; dont expect anything different this time around. The cameras on the Titan are far better than the Cosmo Communicators, but still nothing to write home about. For newer packages, enable the backports repository. Lack of originality aside, the Titan has a lot to like: Its the first keyboard phone of this type to also be a certified rugged phone, meaning its rated IP67 for water and dust resistance, its built of stainless steel and rubber so its shock and scratch proof, and its got a huge 6,000 mAh battery that can go two full days even for heavy users. The open source community maintains a port of Debian Buster (10.9) that you install alongside Android, and which uses the Android Linux kernel. 10mpx is very tight but gives you a little cropping room. That makes it a non deal for me. Its 2021, and its time to upgrade your smartphone. Ive been using a Planet Gemini for about a year now, and while Id definitely call it quirky, I really love using it. Full disclosure: Slimbook sent us the Executive as a loan, and it will be returned to them. I think my wifes phone actually has 20 megapixels, haha. I really wish that ARM could be supported as well as x86 is. Basically, do the colours look right. Plus arm processors should get vastly better soon, with M1 kicking the industry in the rear. Id prefer a low megapixel camera with better light sensitivity and raw data that doesnt require much digital processing to clean it up. The price is a bit of a problem too. For lighter users, three to four days on a single charge is possible. The biggest issue for me with the Gemini is a slightly mushy hinge, which makes touchscreen use less pleasant. I think Cosmo managed to strike a pretty good balance here, though, but I want to stress that the Cosmo is not merely a smartphone. Finally, the device is priced a bit high at 665, or about the equivalent of $880. Those of a certain age may notice that the Cosmo Communicator bear a clear resemblance to the Psion PDA (personal digital assistant), the 1997 device with a cult following among business travelers.