Fxtec Pro1 set to recreate the magic of sliding qwerty phones News oi-Karan Sharma Fxtec launches its latest Pro1 to keep the sliding qwerty keyboard design alive. All you need to know about the retro smartphone with latest features.

Nokia bought the trend of sliding qwerty keyboard design of phones with its Nokia 9000 Communicator back in 1996. Later the company also introduced similar models with improved design. The trend of the sliding phone was also adopted by Samsung in its Corby series. Later the trend was taken over by the complete touch-screen smartphones, and smartphone makers started ditching every possible physical button from the mobile phones.

But it seems that the retro design of the siliding keyboard smartphone is once again coming back in the trend. UK based smartphone maker Fxtec thinks that the market for sliding smartphone still has some room in the mobile phone industry. The company has come up with a new sliding smartphone with qwerty keypad design called Fxtec Pro1.

Fxtec took the wraps off its latest smartphone in the MWC 2019, which offers the 'Key' element which is quite missing the all the next generation smartphones. All the smartphone makers are busy reducing the bezels and physical keys from the latest flagships. Meanwhile, the London-based company has once again introduced the qwerty-keyboard designed phone.

There are many keyboard fans who prefer typing on the physical keys rather than typing on a touch screen keyboard. The Fxtec Pro1 offers a slide-out 5.99-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 2160 x 1080 Pixels. The smartphone offers a sliding angle of 155 degrees which delivers better user experience.

Under the hood, the smartphone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC, clubbed with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, you can also expand the storage up to 2TB via microSD card. On the software part, the Fxtec Pro1 arrives with latest Android 9.0 Pie out-of-the-box.

As far as cameras are concerned, the Fxtec Pro1 features a dual camera setup with the combination of 12-megapixel + 5-megapixel camera sensors along with an LED flash. At the front, the phone houses an 8-megapixel camera for selfies and video calls.

Rather than following the trend of an in-display fingerprint scanner. The company has embedded the sensor on the side-mounted button. The Fxtec Pro1 is fuelled by a 3,200mAh non-removable battery, and the company claims that it is capable of delivering up to 10 hours of talk time and 20 hours of standby in a single charge.

Opinion

While looking at the design of the Fxtec Pro1 I must say that it resembles a lot like Nokia E7, which have the same upwards fold with similar sliding angle along with a touch screen display. However, the Fxtec Pro1 is altogether a different phone and comes with the latest version of Android. Design wise it looks very attractive and also features dedicated camera shutter which use to be there in the Nokia phone back in the '90s.

This smartphone will be a dream come true for users who were waiting for an Android smartphone with a sliding retro look. I liked the phone because of its design and qwerty keyboard which comes with a lot of shortcuts and navigation features. The fully-functioning keyboard comes with dedicated keys like Ctrl, Shift, Caps, Esc, Del, and a number row on the top.

The Fxtec Pro1 is currently available for purchase in the US for $649, the UK for £649, and across Europe for €649. Let's see when the company will launch the phone in India.

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