Nokia N920 Concept – How Nokia should approach a QWERTY keyboard?
Nokia N920 Concept
This was just a 20 minute MS Paint job I did a while back. I have NO skill in photo editing, as is evident in the images – it is just a raw idea.
The AIM was not to design a phone, but to show that within a given (compact) space, you can have a decent 4 Row configuration keyboard that Nokia seems rather averse to making. The name is not important either, it’s just something to refer to.
There is obviously no “out of the box” thinking – it is just a very standard QWERTY which took literally just 2 minutes to put together. The only difference for me is that this was designed from the keyboard first then the rest of the phone grew around it. After all, if you’re getting a phone with a QWERTY keyboard, you’d want a lot of focus on an optimized configuration.
- It’s shorter than the N97, and of similar width.
- Within that space we have a 4-row keyboard:
- Dedicated Numbers Row
- A more traditional offset QWERTY configuration
- I haven’t included secondary symbols on all keys – that can be decided later whether they are needed and if so where they should be.
- Basic punctuation is easy to get to. Full Stop, Comma, Apostrophe can all be reached by one button press.
- Two shift buttons, left and right to get the secondary key
- Space bar located in the middle.
- Menu button
- Standard Symbols button for additional symbols on touch screen
- There’s a trackball instead of a D-Pad or a 4-way arrow keys.
- The keys will not be flat. I have an extremely basic grasp of MS paint as it is. They’d perhaps be similar to the N900
- The keys are slightly larger than the Nokia N97′s
- The entire keyboard occupies just over half of the given space – so the connection between the slide is still very solid, and also gives the option to increase the key size even further.
- This can be stretched to the same length as the N97 to increase the size of the screen and space for the keys.
- Other design faults perhaps in the shape/screen is not the focus here. It’s the fact that
- Like the HTC Touch Pro2, the keys can be reconfigured around. ie. forgoe an actual row yet again so that the QWERTY part is uninterrupted – have the numbers in traditional alphanumeric alignment over the QWERTY keys.
- Since this “N920 concept” is shorter than the N97, I guess it could be elongated to include a D-pad. Since it could have the same gaming capabilities as the N900, a D-pad may actually prove useful in this concept. Or some kind of flat joystick to optimize space.
Other Feature’s the N920 concept would have?
- Screen around 3.5″ – At least 384k pixel res in some ratio.
- N86′s 8MP camera – with shutter/gallery/cam-vid button
- N82′s Xenon flash (perhaps even N86′s Dual LED?)
- N900′s processor/RAM/Graphics card
- N97′s battery
- Capacitive Oled
- N95′s stereo speakers
- Any buttons on the phone, sensors/camera aren’t visible. Buttons, if any can just light up when applicable. Perhaps dedicated music controls or a gesture area?
I haven’t designed the back nor the sides, because frankly I can’t and don’t want to.
I do have intentions that it will be slim, and any ports/buttons will be flush/hidden with doors, except the 3.5mm jack
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If I had 3D skills I’d so try and make a concept phone that looked slightly convincing. We’ve already seen how a concept device was cloned and manufactured by our favourite Chinese Rip-off artists.
Category: Concept, Nokia, Rant, Suggestions
[...] [as a side note, here's a 4-row keyboard ms paint job which attempts to fit within the space contraints] [...]
The space bar in the centre is – in my opinion – uncomfortable, because it separates the ZXCV buttons from BNM. Most users are used to having these side by side.
“No ctrl key … burk …”
“There’s a trackball instead of a D-Pad or a 4-way arrow keys.” << burk too
Looks like a car glass mirror
I prefer the xpaeria X1 keyboard only that this deyboard should have a D-pad or directional keys, I also hope that the n920 will have the mutli-touch screen capability.
PS The keys on this keyboard seem to take up a lot of space and I feel with keys layed out like this, the handset wont be able to look stlyish.
OK… I think we all KNOW, that Nokia would never make a keyboard like that. But that’s a nice idea any way.
[...] Información: My Nokia Blog Tags: N900, N920, Nokia N900, Nokia [...]
[...] – here’s my post on the “N920″. That post was meant to be about a keyboard configuration, that’s all. The N920 name was just [...]
hello nokia …..wake up all mobile r making fast n fast mobile and camra……why r u week back to all….plz,make n920 fast tablet mobile and fix maximum 8magapixal…….be sad nokia.
I have just seen the experia x2 keyboard and I LOVE IT.
Lets make it simple, right now the only keyboard worth talking about is the Touch Pro 2 keyboard, I hate the phone but the keyboard was a dream, it is true I cambe back to my N97 but the keyboard leaves lots to be desired.
jam i interesuar ta di si mund te kam ne posedim nje ksi lloj telefoni n920 na kosov a mund te gjaj edhe ne qfar shume
me rrespekt
[...] revealed the first image to be simply a cheap-ass MS paint job as a concept of a proper 4-row QWERTY keyboard on a Nokia [...]
it is a new phone. so more details tell me.
it is a new phone, and it is a very good, so i like it.
I like this post. I’ve been thinking of this matter as well. But I have to slightly disagree on your keyboard. For instance no Ctrl and Tracball is good but some find it useless. Instead of being an idiot like 80% of bloggers and say your design is crap, I actually took your design and made my own version of it. IMHO I’ve improved it, but others may disagree saying I’ve made it more complex than it needs to be.
Here’s what I based my keyboard’s concept on:
The HTC Touch Pro 2 does have a good featured keyboard BUT it has 5 rows, which makes the keys squished vertically and more difficult for the user to know which button their (giant) thumb rests on (ie cannot see surrounding keys easy due to the squished keys).
On the opposite, the Xperia X2 has a good ergonomics keyboard. It has 4 rows and this helps keep keys at a good size. You can push away easily and you know where your thumb rests.
So I combined these two layouts with the standard keyboard to acheive this:
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/8254/3design.png
(keyboard on a phone which is 130x76mm, the screen is 5.83″ (128x72mm) and the underslide area is 130x48mm)
+ The keyboard is fairly-sized (X2) so the same layout can be rescaled to fit a smaller area
Please give feedback with explanations why you like/dislike
I had 1 typo it was:
Xperia X2: I meant to say its good sized BUT has no dedicated number keys!!
Which is a big disappointment in my honest opinion (imho)!
[...] there should be investment in making a really good one (as opposed to just ticking a box). Ideally I’d have something like the N920 concept keyboard – or this N900/n92o keyboard mashup but that’s just me. Not shown as it would take too [...]