Livermorium was in the news last year for its QWERTY keyboard Moto Mod for the Moto  Z Series. The Mod was announced at CES 2018 with a planned release for Winter 2018, however, it was later canceled. The company changed its name to F(x) Technology and will now launch a high-end smartphone with a QWERTY slide-out keyboard.

F(x) Technology has released a couple of promotional e-mails that provide details of the upcoming smartphone. Apparently, the phone was scheduled to launch last year but was pushed forward.

The smartphone will have a 6-inch display with an 18:9 aspect ratio which the manufacturer claims has a smaller footprint than the Nokia 7.1 Plus and the Moto Z3. The smaller form factor is said to make typing more comfortable. The display will be an AMOLED panel for “ more vibrant colors, deeper blacks, and fewer, thinner screen layers” says F(x) Technology and will have curved edges to match the overall design of the phone.

The F(x) smartphone will have a five-row QWERTY backlit keyboard. It has a staggered layout and dedicated number keys. There are also Shift and Ctrl keys on both sides for easier key combo input easier and the Caps Lock key has a small green LED to show that it is turned on. The keys have a convex design and are said to be optimized to make them comfortable to press. There is also support for multiple languages.

For the slider, F(x) technology said it hired the team that designed the keyboard for the Nokia N97, Nokia E5, and Nokia N950. And just like the N97, the F(x) smartphone will have an angled design which provides a better viewing angle for the display. The angular slider is also said to prevent the screen from wobbling when closed, a common problem of phones with regular sliders.

The metal parts of the slider are said to have been developed using a method called Powder Metallurgy which gives the parts additional strength and durability. The parts are said to be manufactured to meet the same high standard required for the mechanical parts in drones.

In terms of software, the F(x) Technology smartphone will run Vanilla Android (Android Pie) out of the box but with a custom launcher that has been designed to work properly in landscape mode. They have also developed their own apps that work better in landscape mode such as an email app and a calendar app. More custom apps designed for landscape use will be released in the future.

If stock Android is not your thing, then you do not have to worry. F(x) says they will support other independent operating systems. They are already in talks with Lineage OS developers and also plan to work with Sailfish OS developers. They have also promised monthly security updates.

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There is no info on the camera specs or processor or battery capacity of the phone yet. However, since the plan is to launch the phone this quarter, we believe more details will surface in the weeks leading to the launch.

What do you think of the phone? Are slider-keyboard phones dead or will the F(x) smartphone be the one that brings them back? Let us know in the comment box.

(Via)

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