Do you remember when PDA’s were all the rage? Planet Computers is helping to spark their popularity a second time with a smartphone-PDA hybrid. They are continuing to build interesting physical keyboard smartphones and have launched the crowdfunded Astro Slide.
The unique selling point here is that it can be used either as a standard 6.5-inch smartphone or as a personal digital assistant, due to the slide hinge mechanism they are dubbing “RockUp.”
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The hinge enables the screen to be slid off the keyboard, then flipped up so that, for all intents and purposes, have a mini-laptop. This design has fallen out of favour in recent years as screens have gotten larger while on-screen software keyboards have become much, much smarter. There might still be a (small) market for smartphones with physical keyboards, but the doomed TCL reincarnation of Blackberry couldn’t make it work.
A full, albeit small, physical QWERTY keyboard is revealed when the screen is hinged upwards, including a full number row. Planet Computers believe their design will make it the productivity tool you need to make it worth passing the latest Samsung, Huawei or Apple. To answer calls while in the hinged position to simply slide the screen back to the original position.
The Astro Slide has some serious internal hardware, meaning it won’t be a slouch, unlike some other convertibles. It runs the new MediaTek Dimensity 1000 chipset with built-in 5G. While MediaTek doesn’t immediately spring to mind when thinking of high-end hardware, the company said that it has “twice the performance of other 5G chipsets with significantly reduced power consumption.” It also has 6GB of RAM, an eSIM slot, 128GB of storage and a MicroSD slot. This comes with a 48MP rear camera and a relatively low-end selfie camera.
It is harkening back to the glory days of Blackberry while putting a new spin on it, trying to navigate the regular smartphone world successfully as well. It will come with the latest version of Android. The Astro Slide is now available on Indiegogo at an early-bird starting price of $491, looking to ship in March 2021.
