QWERTY · 2008
The Thumbboard
A full keyboard under your thumbs and email in your pocket. The phone that made you look busy, and the one you typed on under the table.
Looks like
Modelled on these phones. Not affiliated with their makers.
We're building this one next. The Brick is ready to try today.
In real life
The real phones that inspired The Thumbboard. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited under each one.
BlackBerry Curve 8300Photo: Rico Shen, CC BY-SA 4.0 BlackBerry Curve 8310Photo: Death by hammer, Attribution licence BlackBerry CurvePhoto: Museo Scienza e Tecnologia, Milano, CC BY-SA 4.0
Specs
- Year
- 2008
- Form factor
- QWERTY
- Screen
- Colour
- Input
- Full keyboard + trackball
- Battery
- A couple of days
A short history
For years, BlackBerry phones were something business people carried, because they could get work email anywhere. The BlackBerry Curve 8300, launched in 2007, made that same kind of phone smaller, friendlier and much more popular.
The Curve had a full QWERTY keyboard, with a tiny key for every letter, and a small trackball in the middle that you rolled with your thumb to move around the screen. Email arrived on its own, without you having to check, and the little red light on top blinked when something new came in.
What it was like
You typed with both thumbs, fast, without looking. People got so attached to their BlackBerrys that they called them CrackBerrys. Meetings and dinners were full of people glancing down at the blinking red light.
Then there was BlackBerry Messenger, or BBM. It let BlackBerry owners send each other messages over the internet instead of paying for texts, with a little “D” when your message was delivered and “R” when it was read. Later Curves became a favourite with teenagers for exactly that reason.
Why people still remember it
The Curve showed how much people wanted to type, not just talk. Its keyboard was so good that many people held on to it long after touchscreens arrived.
The Thumbboard is our take on that phone, and it’s coming soon. In the meantime, try The Brick.