I spent a week typing on a physical keyboard phone—and it proved my decade-old instinct was right

My smartphone journey began in the late 2010s. When everyone else was sliding and flipping physical keyboards, I never understood the appeal. Now, physical keyboards are making a small comeback. I wanted to know if they could change my mind over a decade later.

The phone I’ve been using for the last week is the Unihertz Titan 2 Elite (review). It’s a great little Android device (especially in orange) with a square OLED display and a full BlackBerry-inspired keyboard underneath. Despite owning and reviewing well over 40 phones, this is the first one with a physical keyboard that I’ve used since 2012.

My (brief) history with physical keyboards

One and done

As a Verizon customer back in the day, my first choice of smartphone was either the Motorola DROID or HTC Eris. I chose the Eris for two reasons: the UI looked nicer, and it didn’t have a physical keyboard. Coming from an iPod Touch, I was already fully adapted to touchscreen typing.

However, when it came time to upgrade, I didn’t want to spend the money on a new phone at full price. That led me to buy a used DROID 2 simply because it was a good deal. I figured I didn’t have to use the keyboard if I didn’t want to—which I didn’t.

I should mention that the HTC Eris wasn’t my first phone in general. I had two very standard T9 number pad flip phones before I joined the smartphone world. To be completely honest, I was just never a big texter. Keyboard phones like the Sidekick and ubiquitous BlackBerry didn’t speak to me. By the time I started texting more, I had already moved to touchscreens.

Admittedly, those first few DROID phones didn’t have the greatest physical keyboards. The keys were shallow and mushy, nothing like BlackBerry keyboards that people loved. Regardless, the DROID 2 was the one and only phone with a physical keyboard I ever owned or reviewed. It’s been 14 years since I last typed a letter on a physical phone keyboard.

Taking my first steps clicks

Re-learning how to use a smartphone

Alright, enough about the past—here's what I've been using. The Titan 2 Elite keyboard features a grand total of 36 keys. That includes the full QWERTY, spacebar, alt, two shift keys, backspace, enter, function, symbol, and Android’s back, home, and recents.

The keys themselves have good travel and tactile feedback for their size. The angled “caps” make them easy to feel and distinguish. The full functional field of keys is just over 2.5 inches wide by 1 inch tall, and there’s no extra “chin” space under the bottom row. If you had a BlackBerry Passport many years ago, the Titan 2 Elite would feel familiar.

As I said, I’m about as far as you can get from a former BlackBerry user. Using this keyboard was like learning how to ride a bike for the first time, and that’s exactly how I approached it. I installed a typing practice app and have been using it every day, genuinely trying my best to learn the keyboard.

Virtual keyboards appear when needed and adapt to your needs, but a physical keyboard is ever-present and forces you to do the adapting. Need the % symbol? Well, go find it. It requires a completely different way of thinking, and while some people have already learned how to ride this proverbial bike, I didn’t have past experience to reactivate.

At any rate, I made a concerted effort to learn the ins and outs of this keyboard. I didn't want to just pick it up and start typing as if I knew what I was doing. I took time to play around with the settings, enabled Unihertz’s gestures, created key shortcuts, and tried several different virtual keyboard pairings. I’m ready to share some thoughts.

I love this physical keyboard (but not for typing)

What am I missing?

I want to start by saying I genuinely enjoy the Titan 2 Elite’s keyboard. The keys are satisfying to press, and it’s nice to always see everything in “full screen” without a virtual keyboard popping up in the way (even if it is a smaller screen). The keyboard is also capacitive, so it can be used as a trackpad for scrolling and swiping. That leaves the screen even more unobstructed.

However, by far my favorite thing about having a physical keyboard is the shortcuts. When you’re not actively typing, all those keys are just sitting there waiting to be used for something. Without the need of a third-party remapping app, Unihertz lets you launch apps, app shortcuts, and contacts with literally all of the keys on the keyboard—and you can use these key shortcuts from anywhere.

For example, I have the function key setup to open Sesame Search, which is essentially a super-powered app launcher. As long as I’m not in an active text field, I can click the function key and instantly jump to another app, do a web search, or send a text message from Sesame. I also have Discord mapped to the “D” key, a Google Search shortcut with the “G” key, and the first letter of my wife’s name goes to our text message conversation.

These shortcuts have genuinely changed how I use my phone more than anything I can remember. I pretty much never open the app drawer, and I don’t see the home screen very often, either. There’s just something about the physical keyboard that makes the phone feel more like a real tool.

That being said, when it comes to the reality of actually typing on a physical keyboard, the experience has only solidified my previous opinion. There’s simply no world in which this is better than a virtual keyboard.

I know, I know: “You’ve only been using it for a week!” That’s true, but I’ve also practiced more with this physical keyboard than I ever have with a virtual keyboard. I can pick up pretty much any phone I own, in various sizes, with different keyboard apps, and type 60+ words per minute without trying very hard. The best I could get on the Titan 2 Elite was 41—and it wasn't easy.

My big issue is the limited nature of permanent physical keys. Android allows you use virtual keyboards to supplement the physical keyboard, which is a cool concept, but disapointing in reality. I could only find one app that let me do something as simple as having a number row on the screen at all times. Then there were occasions when I needed a special key that wasn’t on the physical keyboard even as a secondary alt, and I genuinely had no idea how to find it.

Maybe it’s because I don’t have the nostalgia that other people do, but I just don’t know why someone would prefer a physical keyboard. Sure, the tactile feel is cool, but the functionality is severely lacking. I remember watching Steve Jobs talk about the benefit of virtual keyboards during the first iPhone keynote. It immedietly made sense to me—just like when Android started using a virtual navigation bar.

As boring as it may be, virtual keyboards solved a lot of problems with physical keyboards. It's hard to compete with the personalization and flexibility of a UI on a touchscreen. I guess I need to wait another 14 years before trying again.