- TCL who bought the rights to manufacture phones
under the Blackberry name recently announced
that they are killing their Blackberry lineup
and they're not going to do it anymore.
So what better way to celebrate than to check out
what I would say is sort of a spiritual successor.
This is the F(x)tec Pro1.
And the model number is the QX1000.
This is, yes, my friends,
a slider phone with a physical keyboard.
Now I have not so much as had this out of the packaging,
so we're gonna be experiencing it together.
They've got all these supported bands listed
on the back of the box here.
This is the 128 Gig ROM, 16 Gig RAM model.
First up, we've got a, whatever this is.
Kind of reminds me of those horrible belt holsters
that people used to have for their phones,
except it doesn't go on your belt.
It's just like a sleeve.
Got one of those handy-dandy modular wall warts.
(box rustling)
(phone thuds)
Uh, I've clearly lost my touch here. (chuckles)
I swear, I know how to do an unboxing.
You know what? Just forget it.
(box thuds)
Okay, let's just get this out of here.
All right, we've got a USB A to type C cable.
Oh, that's cute.
The wall wart has that Razer green plastic insert.
You know how much Razer claim they paid
to make that exclusive to their laptops?
Apparently, not enough.
And now the phone itself, immediate impressions.
I wanna say Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde.
From the front, it actually looks and feels very modern.
It's got the 2D glass, so it's curved
on the left and right edges.
Feels actually, surprisingly premium.
And then the back, (fingers tapping)
I don't know what it is,
but some manufacturers managed to make their phones out
of cheap plastic and have it feel premium
while others managed to make their phones out
of solid metal and have that feel kind of cheap.
So whether it's just how smooth it is,
like there's kind of a lack of texture to it,
or whatever else it is,
the back definitely doesn't feel as nice as the front.
Look at this difference in thickness guys,
you're basically clipping a keyboard to your phone,
which if you use it often enough,
there might be something to be said for that.
All right, it defaults to English UK.
You know what? I like the Queen's English
as much as the next Canadian.
Got a fingerprint reader, let's find out where it is.
Apparently it's on the right-hand side of the phone there.
Oh, that's so, that's kind of an odd spot
for a fingerprint reader.
You know, I don't actually mind it though,
so it's right under the lock button.
One thing I don't like about having the fingerprint reader
on the side is that sometimes if you wanna unlock
with your left hand, it can be kind of a pain in the butt.
But I think I could get around that with this one.
If I just go, "Okay, well my lock buttons, my index,
and then my middle finger is
gonna be my fingerprint reader".
A, (phone chimes)
They've actually opted for Google's
latest gesture-based control schema.
Also known as the iPhone control schema.
(finger tapping)
Now this is the thing I was saying was nasty before.
Do you hear that sound, David? (finger tapping)
- [David] Yeah. (finger tapping)
- And I don't even have to hit it hard.
I bet I could turn off the haptic feedback
and I'd still have that issue.
Is there a lock or something?
Oh, Lordy, what does that button do?
Oh, cool.
It's got a dedicated shutter button.
I'm gonna take a couple of pictures here.
Oh, wow. That is horrible.
Andy has got two chins, you know?
No, no, no, no, Andy, it's fine.
You're you're good. You're good.
It's just this picture.
This picture, this, you know,
- [Andy] So I have four chins, four chins.
- does this, does this camera make me look fat?
You know, like its, this camera makes you look fat.
It's not, I'm backing myself,
I'm backing myself into a corner here.
It's been a while since I've seen image processing this bad.
Okay, what?
Oh. (phone thuds)
(phone chimes)
So I thought it was more of a slider,
but it's actually more of like a,
like a flip-up 'cause that hinge feels great.
But shockingly solid, like listen to the sound of it.
(phone clicks)
Okay. If I hold the base steady,
'cause like, you know, obviously it's still a phone,
like, that's pretty good!
I'm impressed!
Theoretically, having tactile buttons is a big advantage
because you can feel your way around the keyboard,
but anything you gain from your tactile buttons,
you lose in having to press auxiliary keys like,
Shift or Control or you know,
another layer to access your special characters
for emojis or whatever else.
Look at this, it's got little nipples
for the F and the J as though you're
like intended to type on it.
But even with my little homunculus hands,
that is a seriously not happening kind of situation.
Okay, let's be more realistic,
I'm gonna type with my thumbs.
Oh, did I get a double press there?
I think these died for a reason.
Oh man! Why did they have this gigantic Caps Lock?
Interestingly, the lock button and the fingerprint sensor
are on the back when you're in keyboard mode.
So they're kind of not that easy to get at.
All right, it's still way faster for me
to use a touch screen.
Now, one argument that I have heard
for physical keyboards on phones is people
who do a lot of remote server administration, for example,
using an app like, Pulseway.
But the thing is compared to pressing
a secondary function button and then trying
to find a special character,
I find particularly, with some third-party keyboards,
like the one I use, if you change the long-press delay,
like you can access your special characters
actually much faster.
Cool hinge, keyboards are still stupid.
Camera's terrible.
Maybe I should apply the system update
and see if that fixes all the problems
that I have miraculously.
Most of the things I don't like about it
are things that are obviously not going to be good
on anything other than a tier one smartphone,
things like the camera.
And it has some redeeming qualities.
It does have a headphone jack,
which is pretty nice to see.
It's got stereo speakers,
speaker left, speaker right here.
It's got USB type C for charging,
which is a lot better than we used to see
on these kinds of random phones in the past.
And like I said before, Hey, this hinge is really nice.
If you're after a physical keyboard,
I haven't seen anything in the market that exists
that's better than this.
And of course you don't have to use it all the time.
What is this game called?
Typing, typing defense.
Okay, here we go, here we go.
Abs, but bow.
How's my castle doing?
Drug? Beer? What is this game?!
I was probably too hard on it before. It's not that bad.
And this is another thing that's improved a lot
on basic devices over the years in the screen,
it's actually surprisingly usable.
I'd say the factory calibration is a little bit
on the warm side out of the box.
But other than that, it's pretty sharp.
The contrast is pretty good.
The fact that this is like a PenTile display,
you're getting a little bit of like fringing
around a high contrast areas like these white characters
on this dark background because it is only 10 ADP.
Now let's get to a couple of the forgot-to-mentions.
It's got a 3200 milliamp power battery.
This is Android Pie and it's basically very,
very stock looking, which I like.
And of course it's got a Snapdragon 835 processor.
Wait, what?
Snapdragon 835?!
Oh yeah.
And the list price right now is somewhere
between 650 and 700 U.S. dollars.
Now, if this was a feature phone and it was just like,
"Okay, yeah, we've got this gimmick,
we've got this great hinge, which really does feel great."
Apparently it's rated for a hundred thousand openings
and some closings, it feels really nice.
And we've got this physical keyboard
and it's like 300 bucks or something like that.
If you really care about that feature,
you might have my attention.
But the fact that you're running an ancient top-tier chip
and you're priced at, in between flagship killer.
So something like a Poco F1
and something like a true flagship,
like a Galaxy S or Galaxy Note series on this old hardware,
that's a pretty tough pill to swallow.
Realistically, though,
if what you're after is a physical keyboard
on your Android phone,
you're basically gonna buy this because
you can't really take your business elsewhere.
And as far as the implementations that I've seen go,
this is definitely not the worst.
One thing they got right about the keyboard layout
is the fact that all the essential keys are basically there,
and that's a big advantage over the ones
that try to flip the keyboard out this way,
where it's just too cramped to be legitimately useful.
I would have still liked to have that gap
in the middle to make the typing a bit more comfortable,
but then you would have compromised
on having a familiar layout like that.
So I don't think there's really
one single right answer to that question.
My answer is I wouldn't switch over to this
and I probably wouldn't recommend that you do it either.
But if you know, someone who's really yearning
for the physical keyboard, I was gonna say
there are worse options out there, but there just aren't.
So, thanks for watching Short Circuit today
on the Pro1 by F(x)tec.
Guys, make sure you're subscribed.
This is where we're gonna be doing all of our fun,
little casual unboxings of stuff
that's like super cool and kitschy,
but just doesn't quite justify
a full "Linus Tech Tips", experience video.