The BlackBerry I by no means had

I lived via the period when BlackBerry telephones have been extremely in style however to today remorse that I by no means received to be part of the craze. They have been the factor to have and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) had turn out to be a standing image of types amongst my friends. That’s the place the dialog was – for those who weren’t on BBM, you have been lacking out.

I wished a BlackBerry so badly, however when the time got here for me to choose up my first smartphone, the craze had largely handed, partially as a result of Apple’s iMessage had began taking on the place of defacto messaging platform for the in-crowd, whereas BBM barely held on amongst those that have been caught with BlackBerry telephones. I opted to choose up an Android telephone as an alternative (the iPhone wasn’t a consideration, not that I may have afforded one anyway).

Due to this, I by no means had the core Canadian expertise of click-clacking away on a BlackBerry keyboard. To be clear, I’ve tried BlackBerry keyboards quite a few instances, however messing round with one for a couple of minutes is a far cry from it being a key level of interplay together with your smartphone. I’ve all the time thought I’d take pleasure in utilizing certainly one of these keyboards, however after spending time with the Unihertz Titan Slim, I now not consider that’s the case.

Unihertz supplied me a Titan Slim to check out and I jumped on the likelihood after I noticed the bodily keyboard. Nothing else actually mattered to me – not the digital camera, not the shortage of 5G (not that Canadian carriers have made 5G compelling in any means), not the middling show. And searching again now, if having a bodily keyboard is admittedly vital to you, then the Titan Slim would possibly simply be the telephone for you.

Specs

The Titan Slim (left) is an absolute unit.

Tappity tapping on that board

It seems I actually don’t like bodily keyboards on smartphones. This isn’t a knock towards Unihertz or the Titan Slim, as a result of it’s not that the keyboard is dangerous. As an alternative, I discovered it surprisingly exhausting to adapt my muscle reminiscence to a keyboard that’s surprisingly totally different from what I’m used to.

A part of that’s the format, little issues just like the spacebar sitting between the ‘V’ and ‘B’ keys, or having varied punctuation marks hidden behind verbose keyboard instructions. I missed the interval and comma keys proper subsequent to the spacebar. Greater than that, I’ve come to understand the varied “clever” options accessible in digital keyboards, like autocorrect and swipe typing. The Pixel collection’ wonderful Assistant Voice Typing has additionally turned me into a giant voice-to-text consumer.

The very first thing I observed with the Titan Slim is the distinct lack of those options. Autocorrect remains to be there, however it feels odd transitioning between the bodily keyboard and the display to utilize it, to not point out my penchant for fat-fingering the row of navigation keys between the keyboard and the suggestion bar. Talking of, digital keyboards have a level of predicting what you meant to sort even when your fingers miss the mark, which has given me a false sense of my very own accuracy when typing on my telephone.

The Titan Slim made it abundantly clear that my thumbs don’t have any clue the place any secret’s and my messages grew to become riddled with typos. This resulted in my slowing down to verify I used to be getting the correct keys, cratering my typing pace.

To be clear, I don’t suppose the keyboard is dangerous. The Titan Slim simply doesn’t characteristic a number of of the comforts I’ve come to depend on, which made it tough for me to adapt. For anybody within the reverse boat, who wrestle with digital keyboards and doesn’t depend on these intelligence options, the shortage of them on the Titan Slim shouldn’t make a lot distinction.

Scroll assistant gained my coronary heart, regardless of points

Whereas I could not have loved typing on a bodily keyboard, there have been some keyboard-related options I actually loved. ‘Scroll assistant’ was among the many finest of those even with obvious imperfections.

Scroll assistant turns the Titan Slim’s bodily keyboard into a big touchpad, enabling customers to scroll via apps by swiping on the keyboard slightly than the display. Within the grand scheme of issues, scroll assistant isn’t a game-changer, however it’s good to have a method to navigate with out blocking the display with a finger, particularly on a telephone just like the Titan Slim that has a smaller show to make room for a keyboard.

The characteristic contains some considerate additions. The Titan Slim will robotically flip off the scroll assistant when the battery falls beneath 5 %. Customers can even force-enable scroll assistant on a per-app foundation if it doesn’t work in some instances, one thing you’ll have to do lots as a result of, a minimum of in my testing, it was a complete toss-up if scroll assistant would work. When it does work, it really works pretty properly, though the scrolling has some quirks. For instance, whereas scrolling down is all the time clean, scrolling up feels janky, which I think is said to the angle of the keys.

Furthermore, it’d be good if scroll assistant expanded to cowl some widespread navigation gestures. For instance, swiping left or proper on the keyboard may set off the again gesture, or switching between feeds in apps like Twitter. As is, swapping between swiping on the keyboard to swiping on the display to return (or urgent the again button) felt jarring.

Together with the scroll assistant, the Titan Slim contains a number of different options nestled away in a Settings menu labelled ‘Clever help.’ This features a community supervisor that lets customers block apps from accessing the web via Wi-Fi or knowledge, customizations for the LED notification gentle (welcome again, my beloved), configurable keyboard shortcuts, a QR code scanner, flip to mute and extra. There’s additionally a ‘Toolbox’ app loaded with little instruments like a compass, flashlight, bubble stage and even a plumb bob.

One other notable characteristic is the programmable ‘utility key.’ It’s a purple key on the left facet of the system, and customers can freely map quite a lot of features to it for lengthy, quick and double presses. I set it up as a method to open my digital camera shortly or take a screenshot, however there are many different features too.

These are all welcome additions, however none of those are must-haves for me. Others would possibly disagree, however I’ve used smartphones for years with none of these issues and have been completely nice (although I do miss issues just like the notification gentle on trendy smartphones).

All these options don’t save the Titan Slim from mediocrity

Regardless of jamming in all these options, it takes greater than useful options to make a very good smartphone. As soon as once more, the Titan Slim’s standout characteristic is the bodily keyboard. In case you haven’t chosen to die on the bodily keyboard hill, this telephone is just not for you.

The Titan Slim’s efficiency isn’t nice. I didn’t count on groundbreaking efficiency, given the specs. In fact, the telephone remains to be loads usable, however normal telephone duties like bouncing round apps, sending messages, looking the online and scrolling social media didn’t really feel as responsive as on different lower-spec telephones I’ve tried.

Though benchmarks aren’t the be-all and end-all in terms of measuring efficiency, they are often useful for comparisons. Unsurprisingly, the Titan Slim’s Helio P70 chip did not carry out in addition to different units in Geekbench 6, although it is value noting we had restricted funds units to match towards. The Pixel 6a is the closest by way of worth, however advantages from having the identical chip as Google’s Pixel 6 and 6 Professional, arguably a ‘flagship’ CPU regardless of its personal underwhelming efficiency.

Once more, the Titan Slim was useable, however that is not a very excessive bar to move. I am going to take sluggish and dependable, however the Titan Slim did not meet that stage, both. I had some points with apps not fairly working as anticipated, together with Geekbench itself, which errored out and failed to finish the take a look at a number of instances earlier than it will definitely labored.

Talking of issues not working, I had plenty of points with Wi-Fi on the Titan Slim. On my residence community, the Titan Slim would join for a couple of minutes after which act like there was no web connection, regardless of nonetheless being related to the Wi-Fi. I additionally tried connecting it to a hotspot from one other telephone, however that didn’t work both. Information labored nice, nonetheless.

Maybe the largest disappointment for me was that the Titan Slim runs Android 11. Now, Android 11 isn’t that outdated, however coming from a Pixel operating the newest model of Android coupled with different niceties like Materials You, the Titan Slim’s Android 11 feels positively historic.

I may forgive the usage of Android 11, however it does depart me involved with the telephone’s longevity. Even when Unihertz adheres to a prolonged and rigorous improve schedule, it’s nonetheless beginning off two releases behind.

However what concerning the 48-megapixel digital camera?

Don’t let the numbers idiot you – the Titan Slim’s cameras will not be good. Neither the 48-megapixel rear digital camera or the 8-megapixel entrance digital camera take good pictures. Probably the most egregious points are the pace of captures and, for the rear digital camera, the bizarre, splotchy marks.

The Titan Slim’s bizarre, splotchy digital camera.

The rear digital camera has these weird, unusual marks/splotches that seem in pictures and within the viewfinder when taking an image. A lot to my shock, they’re not tremendous seen in some photos — one way or the other, I missed the splotches within the first few footage I snapped however wanting again at them, I could make them out. You possibly can see the splotches clearly within the beneath picture I snapped of a beige wall.

There are two outstanding white splotches within the higher half of the picture and two smaller white splotches in the direction of the underside, in addition to a bizarre blue splotch that runs a loop from the highest proper nook down the left facet and again to the underside proper nook – the blue discolouration is most seen towards the underside of the image. It virtually seems like some type of liquid stain, however the Titan Slim I examined hasn’t touched any liquid whereas below my care. Wiping down the digital camera lens additionally made no distinction.

Although the splotches and discolouration are irritating, I’ll give Unihertz the good thing about the doubt and assume I received a bum unit. It’s additionally removed from the one subject current. As talked about up prime, the digital camera is sluggish – not sluggish to open, however sluggish to seize. Far too many footage got here out blurry as a result of I moved the telephone properly after I believed it had completed capturing the picture.

Even after I managed to seize a picture that’s half respectable, it doesn’t measure as much as different choices. And positive, perhaps it’s not fully honest to match a telephone just like the Titan Slim to a high-end smartphone just like the Pixel 7 with a well-regarded digital camera, however even the Pixel 6a — a funds telephone nearer in worth to the Titan Slim and arguably worse digital camera {hardware} (12-megapixels to the Slim’s 48-megapixels, amongst different issues) — blows the Titan Slim away.