I Don't Get The Hype For Smartphones With Physical Keyboards

When the first iPhone ditched a physical keyboard for good, revolutionizing how people interact with their mobile devices, it amazed everyone. While the iPhone wasn't the first phone with a touchscreen, it did help bring them into the mainstream. Since then, phones have continued to evolve, leaning harder and harder into their digital user interfaces, with devices even ditching physical home buttons in place of digital options (or gestures) just 10 years later when the iPhone X killed its home button completely.

Everything since the introduction of that original iPhone by Steve Jobs in 2007 has seemed to push us toward a more digital future, from touchscreen laptops to tablets that don't even require a keyboard to become a productivity device. There has been a resurgence in recent years, though, of one seemingly obsolete feature: the physical keyboards on smartphones. In fact, there are several phones with physical keyboards you can buy right now, and there are even more on the way, with one company recently kicking off a Kickstarter for its second device.

I can't trace exactly when the hype started, but I remember seeing a lot of excitement around the original Clicks keyboard, which Michael Fisher on YouTube revealed in 2024. The idea was novel, bringing a full-size physical keyboard to your iPhone without actually having to give up any of the screen real estate that made the device so useful. As more phones start to pop up with those physical keyboards, I've realized something: I don't get the hype around these devices because it just takes up screen space when I don't even need a keyboard.

When I tried the Clicks keyboard, I admittedly enjoyed the physical feeling of pressing the buttons, but as someone with bigger fingers, getting used to the cramped button layout was extremely difficult and frustrating. Sure, the keypresses felt good, but I never fell in love with it. That's fine. Not every product is going to work for everyone, and I accept that.

However, it made me look at the wider market as a whole, as more smartphones pop up with physical keyboards. Because while Clicks has changed its design somewhat over the years, and you could always remove it, the same can't be said for smartphones designed with a physical keyboard attached. At that point, the keyboard becomes not only a selling point, but a disadvantage, because I haven't seen a single new phone with a keyboard that doesn't sacrifice its screen space for the keyboard. There's also the question of repairability.

When you add a physical component like buttons on a keyboard, you're adding in another piece to that puzzle. Smartphones have only really started to improve in repairability recently, so I do wonder just how much of an effect those physical components would have on that side of the market. Plus, with how much smartphones have continued to grow, and how the foldable market is growing. Just look at how Samsung has expanded its offerings with the Fold 8 and the Fold 8 Ultra, as well as the reportedly upcoming iPhone Fold. It seems like, for manufacturers at least, the future of smartphones is leaning toward bigger devices that can still fit in your pocket.

See, I think I can sum up the hype behind physical keyboards on smartphones with one word: nostalgia. That isn't to say this is the definitive reason by any means. As I said above, I really don't get the hype, so this is just how I tend to think about it. It makes sense, though. It's well known, both from studies and just from how people live their lives, that the past often holds a lot of meaning for the human brain. And because of that, people often have a love for things that might not always make the most sense in the future, but that worked just fine in the past.

For me, physical keyboards are that. They made sense when Blackberries were one of the best smartphones you could buy. But now, in the digital future, they make far less sense to me. And while I can see the benefits, like the aforementioned physical feeling of pressing the keys, those benefits don't outweigh the disadvantages for me. I'd rather have my screen real estate. And sure, you can argue that using a digital keyboard takes up my screen space. You aren't wrong. But you know what I can do with it? I can minimize it when I don't need it, and that earns me that bottom third of my display back. With a physical keyboard, you're sacrificing that screen space no matter what you do.