There's a certain segment of smartphone users — and we're not judging here — who just have to have a hardware keyboard. (We hear you. We grew up on Treos and Droids and Motorola Q9s that all had buttons with letters on them. (Some of us even used ... what was it called ... Blackberry!) But hardware keyboards have mostly gone the way of the dinosaur — until today.
Samsung has a keyboard cover for the Galaxy Note 5 and the Galaxy S6 edge+ (and soon the original Galaxy S6 and S6 edge as well) that brings the hardware keyboard back to the phablet family. It's a four-row deal, complete with hardware buttons for home, multitasking and back. It'll cost $80, and be available in black, silver and gold. It's capacitive, actually, so the keys strike down on part of the display. That means no Bluetooth connection, and it doesn't have a built-in battery or anything. Just a cover, and and keyboard.
The keyboard itself is detachable, so you can use the cover without blocking the bottom of the phone all the time. That's not a horrible tradeoff. Plus you get the added protection of a case and cover.
And perhaps most important is that Samsung remembered secondary functions, including symbols — and a dialer section.
