By 
We heard directly from Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside that he had plans to release several devices before October’s end, but we never thought we’d see the return of the the Motorola Droid, the company’s QWERTY Android slider. In a few leaked images from the Chinese micro-blogging site Weibo, one user leaked some images of a device he’s calling the 5 generation Motorola Milestone — known in the states as the Motorola Droid 5.
Not much information was provided, but you can see the device follows closely the style of recent Droid devices. Allegedly the phone will come with NFC, wireless charging, and from the look of it, will sport a larger 4.5 inch+ display. And just when you thought you saw the last Android QWERTY die off with the Droid 4…
[NewCellPhonesBlog via Engadget]
please please please give it some sexy specs.
Probably a Tegra 2 and wvga 4.5in screen. Qwertys always get the shaft.
It’ll be at least a tegra 3 or last year’s snapdragon.
There was a slight hint of sarcasm in my post. Moral of the story is : qwerty’s get the shaft. I would be super surprised if it had high end specs.
IMO qwerty phones are for people that are too lazy to get used to touchscreen typing. I guarantee you I can type faster than any qwerty user with SwiftKey
I guarantee you I can touch type better with my qwerty.
9 Keys beats all
DVORAK bitches!
Why would smaller keys that actually move ever be faster? It makes no sense. I think hardware qwerty users have never had a 4.5″ or bigger screen to type on is the problem.
I never said faster. I think it’s so funny how people have this big hate-on for qwertys. so many times I’ve heard “you don’t need a qwerty if you have swype on a 4.5″ screen!!!” Ok…. well I didn’t NEED a qwerty to operate a 3.5″ iPhone. I still WANT a qwerty. I still have (and use) swype, it’s not like having a qwerty barres you from installing it…
To me that sounds as ludicrous as if someone said, “Nah, you don’t need LTE, there’s wifi everywhere these days”
It’s not necessarily speed, it’s accuracy. Try typing names or anything that’s remotely complicated, and the hardware keyboard comes into its own. Not to mention how useful it is if you are using a remote desktop /VNC type application.
Don’t forget in landscape mode you can see where exactly you are typing and how it will be formatted.
Let’s see swiftkey works with a secure password for your online bank…
ill bet u i can type faster than anyone on touchscreen with my qwerty. with 2 thumbs im fast.. really fast. because i do alot more typing. but ill bet u something else too. i can type faster and more accurate without having to go back and correct errors WITHOUT autocorrect helping me with my spelling.
I use two thumbs on a virtual keyboard too. The keys are bigger on a virtual keyboard as well. V keyboard with swift key will beat a hardware qwerty by considerable margins. Do you think we all switched to it because it’s slower?
speed typing is relative to the user and what they consider fast. ill say tho, i wont be switching to virtual keyboard anytime soon since i like to have my full screen realestate available to display what i actually want to see. and what i dont want to see is a virtual keyboard popping up when im typing 3000 word responses. as i do regularly. and both creating and editting large documents.
for short typing tasks it’s fine. but physical qwerty is for the big guns
If it comes in GSM and I can use my microsd and if without the verizon branding, google can knock some sense into moto (i.e. unlockable bootloader)… I will buy this. Spec wise, it will definitely be an upgrade to my captivate glide – even if they aren’t the super best, the most important spec for me is the keyboard.
yeah unlocked bootloader is a necessity imo. hopefully they release a global version not tied to verizon where developers can really toy and see what the capabilities are.
This just in, Motorola Droid 6 to be released in time for Christmas -____-
I thought Moto was moving away from carrier exclusives… Droid Mini, Droid Ultra, Droid Maxx, and Droid 5… all Verizon exclusives.
It’s possible these are all leftovers from before Googs bought them. They may still have stuff in the pipeline or they have to fulfill contract stuff.
Yes yes yes yes yes made my day
Yes! If this is a Milestone (I had the original), then my disappointment at the X not coming to the UK may have just lifted…
What’s next? T9 predictive text?
BEST DAY OF 2013 YESSSSSSSS!
I just fell out of my seat.
It’s cool to see some people still excited for QWERTY, I can’t go back to that though. The extra weight is more than I can bear.
ill just wait for Droid 7..
Nice!
hopefully flagship specs like snapdraon 800
moto we talking about…so no
That seems like a LOT of space taken up by the navigation bar. Looks like there will be about 3.8″ of usable display- if a 4.3″. Even less if smaller.
cry about it…onscreen buttons are the only way to go
onscreen buttons FTW.
that’s the only way to experience ICS/JB properly.
having to *guess* if a menu button will do something is just dumb, etc
And they disappear when you don’t need them, like in a movie.
id love revamped og droid n this is the closest thing moto has released to it…hopefully with that stock ui and x8 chip setup like the rest their current line….only thing that scares me is thats the old moto camera app…so hopefully its not the old ui
I just really doubt this is coming. The style is reminiscent of the droid RAZR HD, the on screen nav keys are the same as the razr hd and M at first before they were updated to the aosp style, and the camera app is the old style too. I think this is old and Verizon passed on it long ago
Would be nice if it is 5 inch.
weird. it’s running the older Motorola software. notice the software buttons.
Makes my day to see this.
Really hope it’s 720p+, and not PenTile. The PenTile screen on the Droid4 is its undoing: small text is difficult to read, especially if it’s not in black and white. It needs a real battery rated for one day of heavy use.
I still don’t think Motorola has a clue as to who is buying these devices. I say this because I notice in the picture that there is a “.com” key replacing the =/+ key. The point of a QWERTY slider is that you can haul ass on it. It’s easy to hit 40+wpm in everyday typing. Why in the world would you replace a critical key with an item that will only be used by people who have absolutely no interest in buying this device?
If this is to succeed, they’ll need to target a high-end market that’s looking to use it as a phone with laptop-like capabilities. Done right, a QWERTY slider works like no other device for composing lengthy emails, editing documents, working in spreadsheets, managing networks/servers (via SSH, VNC, RDP, etc) and even writing code. No one’s looking to replace their computer with a phone, but it’d be nice to have a device that lets you leave the laptop at work more often.
Please don’t skimp on the specs and add stupid features to appeal to more markets. Appeal to the one market that actually wants this device, and you’ll sell millions. Try to broaden that appeal, and you’ll be left scratching your head as to why no one bought one.
oh dont worry, we’ll reprogram that. im for the standard droid 4 keyboard layout. it’s practical and useful. a delete key wouldve been nice tho. i have no use for .com key. alt/ctrl/delete would be cool
See that is actually why I don’t use hardware qwerty anymore, they are so much slower than virtual keyboards. If you are only hitting 40wpm that proves my point. I can knock out 70 easy on a virtual with swift key installed and I’m kinda slow, someone with smaller fingers could hit much higher.
I’d love to go to a virtual keyboard, so many more phone options available. I’ve tried them all, and some are very impressive. Where they fall short is when you want to type something with proper grammar, add things like parentheses, numbers, technical terms, and acronyms. As they fundamentally lack tactile feel, you also have to look at the keyboard, which means you can’t be proofreading what you’ve already written while you’re typing, you have to do it in a second pass. Additionally you lose significant screen area, most notably in landscape orientation.
I can go quite fast with a virtual keyboard too, but when I try to actually use one to do work, it becomes frustrating and tiresome, and it feels slower than the QWERTY slider. Have a dozen test phones sitting on my desk right now, still using the now 1.5 year old Droid 4.
Also I’m going to throw this out there…. I have large fingers, does that mean I don’t get to have a phone? I can rail a qwerty, or I can baby my swype and plead my fat fingers don’t mess it up.
Also—just entering a complex password is next to impossible with a software keyboard…. multiple case changes…weird symbols….no problem with the d4 keyboard. A real caps lock button is a godsend. Meanwhile the iphones and other android devices we had at work couldn’t be used to test our server access.
The display on the D4 was pathetic. Didn’t matter what the brightness was set at, if you were outside and wanted to see your phone screen, that was a bummer.
It doesn’t matter anyways, if you turn the brightness all the way up you kill your battery in an hour. Although i’m beginning to think my d4 is even more of a lemon than everyone elses. I want the build quality of the d1 back, that thing is going to outlive me. Why can’t we have a phone made of steel?
With the Droid branding, it sounds like it will be Verizon only, which is a huge bummer. Im still rocking the HTC G2 on T-mo (chime the sad trombone), but would like to upgrade to another slider at some point. (Cant stand virtual kb’s)
heard a new sidekick was coming out :-p
I HATE software keyboards, too. LoL!! I’m waiting for the HTC G3.
I hope they find some spark to continue the G-series line.
1 more feature I just realized I’d want, an ability to quickly unlock when the keyboard is open without having to touch the screen (when you are still in a 30 minute window from the last time you unlocked your phone).
I thought this was just a Qwerty keyboard thing? The HTC G2 unlocked when you opened the keyboard.
Nope you still have to swipe to unlock on droid 1 and droid 4 (i assume d2 and d3 as well, although I’ve never owned them) and if you have the keyboard open already you never know whether the gyro will have switched the orientation or not yet.
I get the feeling that there may be a few more developments to this. Hopefully the 5 will be rocking some decent specs along with top drawer functionality. Then Googorola (or Motoroogle) will be on to a winner.
ummm Moto.. is it too late to ask for an infrared port to control the tv?
C’mon folks, it’s 2013, get with the times!
Who uses physical keyboards anymore?? I guess there’s still a market…..just look at the latest Samsung flip phone that’s due out soon.
I suppose crazier things have been released.
They’re just continuing with the original Droid styling, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I got a D4 after coming off years of BB, but realized my mistake and went back for a razr, I currently have an N4. They wouldn’t be making them if people weren’t buying them. You also don’t have to buy one, so quit bitching.
I HATE software keyboards!! I have to use different ones to fix different issues. The JB keyboard is good at fixing ‘b’ and ‘n’ instead of space and using slang and symbols. Swiftkey is good at knowing exactly what I want to type, so less errors, but sux when using slang and special symbols. I can go on.
I just use the JB keyboard, because I HATE it when I type ‘b’ or ‘n’ instead of space. LoL!!
Qwerty keyboards have always been good to me. Mainly because I can actually feel where my fingers are as opposed to assuming I’m hitting the right letter.
But not those tiny old school black berry Qwertys. Those are WAY to small. LoL!!
-_-
*Patiently waiting for the HTC G3*
=.[
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