While the Astro Slide 5G has been on the major crowdfunding website Indiegogo for a while now, the device has now gone official. The device is an attempt to revive the physical QWERTY smartphone market and is the world’s first 5G handset to feature a full keypad.
According to a PocketLint report, the Astro Slide 5G from Planet Computers is a 5G enabled smartphone, which is possible thanks to the MediaTek Dimensity 800 processor under the hood. Although, the company had originally previously promised to offer a flagship level processor, the Dimensity 1000 chipset. The most notable aspect regarding the device is undoubtedly its full sized QWERTY keyboard, which sits underneath the display and slides across the base.
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The keyboard is housed underneath till the time the user slides it out and uses the Astro Slide 5G in landscape mode. Notably, sliding out the keyboard will also have the display incline upwards, offerings a better viewing angle through its hinge mechanism. To put things simply, the device resembles a tiny laptop. Furthermore, the smartphone also plays on nostalgia, when back in the early Android days full sized keyboards usually accompanied smartphones.
Talking about the specifications, the mid range device sports a 6.39 inch FHD+ AMOLED panel on the front, with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage along iwth supprot for microSD card. The device will be charged via a USB Type C port and also support Qi standard wireless charging up to 10W as well. Astro Slide 5G is expected to ship around June 2021 with Android 11 and will be priced roughly around 699 US Dollars.
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