A Problem with Keyboard Phones
Filed under Gadgets
I *love* having a keyboard on my phone, a Motorola Q (Palm Treo and Blackberry also have similar keyboards). However, I've been in some situations where the keyboard is worse than a normal phone keypad. What do you do when you want to dial the number "1-800-BUY-A-DELL" or you are asked by an automated system to enter the first 3 letters of the last name of the person you are trying to contact. You look at your phone's keypad and press the number that has the appropriate letter on it. Well that doesn't work for phones with keyboards!
What *should* happen is this...when you type a phone number to dial, the phone assumes your want numbers, so each button you press gives you the number and not the letter (this is what current phones do). BUT, if you want to type "BUY-A-DELL", you should just hold down the ALT button (the button under the "A" key in the above picture) and type "BUYADELL" and the phone should automagically enter the numbers "28923355." This doesn't seem hard...maybe it is just an oversight at this early stage of cell phones with keyboards.
While I was looking for pictures of phone keypads, I ran across this explanation of why calculators and computer keyboards use a number pad with 123 at the bottom and phones use 123 at the top.
