ASCII.jp Keyboard now and then! Nokia pulled out the ancient QWERTY keyboard smartphone

A collection of Nokia's early smartphones!

You rarely see smartphones with QWERTY keyboards these days. But a decade or so ago, companies were making smartphones with Blackberry-style keyboards. Nokia, which I still like, also released a number of keyboard terminals.

Well, this is a personal story of the author living in Hong Kong, but I talked about old smartphones, no, PDA, at a YouTube live of a gadget friend who lives in Hong Kong. Do you know that there was a PDA called "PSION"? Around 2000, when Palm was the mainstream, PSION was its rival. I had a hot talk with a friend who used PSION with me, so if you are interested, please take a look.

My friend Mr. Taike (right) and the author (left) passionately discussing PSION

To appear on this YouTube, I pulled out my old Nokia keyboard smartphone from home. Because PSION and Nokia have a big relationship. PSION was equipped with "EPOC OS" developed in-house, but this EPOC OS was transferred to Symbian, which was established by PSION, Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, etc. in 1999 and changed its name to Symbian OS. And after that, it built a glorious era as a representative OS for smartphones until the iPhone appeared.

A number of Nokia smartphones were sold in Japan as well. They all had Symbian OS S60 (formerly Series 60) UI. But even before the S60, Nokia used an older version of Symbian OS/UI for smartphones with keyboards. In my YouTube appearance this time, I talked about PSION's PDA and Nokia's keyboard smartphone with Symbian OS.

However, since the S60 was also major in Japan, I talked about Nokia's QWERTY keyboard smartphone equipped with the UI before the S60 and the Series 80. Series 80 supports QWERTY keyboard and landscape display. Models with this OS included the "Nokia 9210" (2000), "Nokia 9300" and "Nokia 9500" (both 2004).

Enhancement models of Nokia 9210, Nokia 9210i (back) and Nokia 9500 (front). Can be used as a mobile phone when closed

Of course, the display was not a color or touch panel, but there were four buttons on the side of the display that could be operated with one touch. There are also shortcut buttons for frequently used office apps above the QWERTY keyboard. Since I could use Japanese to some extent, I used Nokia's QWERTY keyboard terminal as my main machine from this era.

The keyboard is easy to press, and there are app shortcut buttons

Before these two models, Nokia had QWERTY keyboard smartphones. Those models did not run Symbian OS, but GEOS developed by GeoWorks. GEOS was developed for PDAs in an era when there were no smartphones, but Nokia made it compatible with circuit-switched data communication instead of packet communication, making it possible to use a browser.

Nokia's GEOS smartphones are Nokia 9000 (1998) series and Nokia 9110 (1999) series. The Nokia 9000 was quite large, but the Nokia 9110 is small and slim. The Nokia 9210 and Nokia 9110 are almost the same size.

Nokia 9000 (back) and Nokia 9110 (front) in the era of GEOS

Both models are from before 2000, so the display is monochrome. In addition, it makes you feel the times that you can send and receive faxes as standard. In those days, SMS was used for normal message exchange, and fax was used for document exchange. It was a time when email was used on a PC. However, since that time, Nokia has released smartphones with QWERTY keyboards.

Nokia 9000. The application buttons are lined up from the left with "TEL", "SMS" and "FAX". I miss the fact that the browser is referred to as "Internet"

This line of Nokia smartphones with QWERTY keyboards was nicknamed 'Communicator'. In an era when there were no smartphones yet, Nokia called a smart device that fused mobile phones, the Internet, and faxes Communicators.

In the late 1990s, mobile phones were mainly used for making calls, and sending emails and browsing on mobile phones was a dream. However, before the Nokia 9000, Nokia teamed up with HP to release a product that could be used like a Communicator. That is HP's OmniGo 700LX.

Actually, you can slide in the Nokia 2110, Nokia's best-selling mobile phone at the time, on the back. In other words, it is structured so that the Nokia 2110 can be combined with the back of the HP 200LX.

The mysterious shape on the back is for attaching Nokia 2110

The Nokia 2110 was released in 1994 and became very popular as the world's thinnest slim mobile phone at the time. A similar machine appeared in Japan, but both Nokia and HP thought, "If it's such a thin mobile phone, it won't increase the thickness even if it's attached to the back of the PDA," and the 700LX was born.

In 1994, the Nokia 2110 was popular for its thinness. The author's collection, but the keypad has deteriorated over time

Slide Nokia 2110 into HP OmniGo 700LX

Fusion complete

The combination of OmniGo 700LX + Nokia 2110 is barely big enough to be held in one hand, but at the time, it must have been a dream machine that could be opened anywhere and connected to the internet.

In addition, I used 100LX and 200LX in Japan, but after that I had an affair with Zaurus, and in 1998 I was assigned to Hong Kong as an expatriate and used PSION and Palm. I bought this OmniGo 700LX as part of a collection a long time ago, but I really wanted to try it in this style.

Since the Nokia 2110 on my back is heavy, I can pull out the stopper from under the main unit to prevent it from falling over.

Open. The keyboard and display are the same as the 200LX. The LCD is damaged due to aging.

Since this product is over 20 years old, unfortunately it has deteriorated here and there. But it's fun to come out like this once in a while and immerse yourself in old memories. In the future, if a smartphone with a QWERTY keyboard comes out, I will purchase it and expand my "keyboard smartphone collection".

I want to bring these devices out once in a while and miss the old days

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