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This Tiny Smartphone Packs a Pocket-Friendly Physical Keyboard

​There are plenty of phones that look toward the future at MWC 2026, but only a few take inspiration from the past.. The Unihertz Titan 2 Elite is a pocket-sized handset with a physical keyboard that brings back BlackBerry nostalgia and introduces a ton of new tricks to boot. It’s the latest in a series of phones from Unihertz, following its BlackBerry Passport-like Titan series.. Though the shift to glass touchscreens heralded by the original iPhone has enabled far greater visibility and functionality in mobile experience, a subset of tech fans longs for the bygone days of physical keyboards and buttons, iconicized by BlackBerry’s classic devices.. Modern accessory company Clicks filled that retro niche with physical keyboard cases, even debuting its own version of a BlackBerry. It’s launching the Clicks Communicator, which the Titan 2 Elite could be competing against when both arrive in the market.. Much like the Communicator, the Titan 2 Elite intends to be a full-fledged smartphone with half the screen of a typical handset to make way for the keyboard. The Titan 2 Elite doesn’t have pricing or release details yet, but it will launch on Kickstarter next month.. In hand, the Titan 2 Elite is a delightful throwback. Yet even a cursory use of its 4.03-inch (1,080×1,200-pixel resolution) AMOLED touchscreen with a 120Hz refresh rate shows how modern it is, with smooth browsing and a home screen full of apps. It is a bit thicker than today’s phones (especially the Samsung Galaxy Edge and iPhone Air), but that only helps it rest better between my palms.. The big feature is the keyboard, which has a full QWERTY layout and reminds me of the old BlackBerry Curve.. However, whereas that older phone used a rolling ball to control its cursor, the Titan 2 Elite has a brilliant solution — all its physical keys use capacitive sensing. I literally ran my thumb up and down the keyboard, watching the screen roll up and down as if I’d done the same motion on its touchscreen. It’s a gesture borrowed from some of the final BlackBerry phones in the 2010s, and is featured on some of Unihertz’s prior Titan phones.. The touch keys are a pleasure to use, and the functionality cleverly sidesteps one of the bigger pitfalls of going with a physical keyboard, i.e., less room for a display. If my thumbs aren’t blocking the screen because they’re scrolling on the keys, it doesn’t matter as much that it’s half the size of the display on most modern phones.. There’s another scrolling trick with the capacitive keyboard, too. You can set it so the left side moves the cursor while the right still scrolls up and down, and then simply tap anywhere on the right to “click” the cursor, enabling mouse-like navigation. Who needs a BlackBerry-style scrolling wheel?. The Titan 2 Elite has two 50-megapixel rear cameras and a 32-megapixel front-facing camera. David Lumb/CNET. Admittedly, this feature was a little rough in execution. I was told that the Titan 2 Elite models shown off at MWC a  

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The Sonos Play puts the best parts of the Era 100 in a portable speaker

​Sonos has just announced its first new products since 2024, when the company’s plans went sideways after a disastrous update to its app. First up is the Sonos Play, the company’s latest portable speaker. Long-time Sonos watchers will recognize the name from the old Play:1, Play:3 and Play:5 speakers, but this new model has little to do with those products of the past. The $299 Play is a Wi-Fi and Bluetooth speaker that sits between the $179 Roam 2 and $499 Move 2 and could be the “goldilocks” speaker in the company’s portable lineup, at least based on what I know so far.The closest comparison for the Play is the excellent Era 100, which Sonos released back in 2023. At 7.6” tall, 4.4” wide and 3” deep, it’s much thinner than the Era 100 which is over 5 inches deep. And compared to the Move 2 (9.5” x 6.3 x 5”) it’s much more portable. That goes for weight, too — the Play is less than 3 pounds, compared to over 6.5 pounds for the Move 2. It’s not the kind of speaker you’ll throw in your bag and forget about, like the tiny Roam 2, but it’s far more portable than the Move 2. Finally, the Play is IP67 rated, just like the Roam 2. That means it can be submerged in up to a meter of water for up to 30 minutes; it’s also dustproof. The grab handle on the back of the Sonos Play.SonosFrom a speaker component perspective, it’s again quite similar to the Era 100. It has two tweeters positioned at a 90-degree angle for stereo separation paired with one midwoofer; it also has two additional passive radiators to increase the bass response in its relatively small case. The Era 100 lacks those passive radiators but is otherwise identical. Obviously, we’ll have to listen to the Play before saying how closely it compares to the Era 100, but this speaker should significantly outperform the Roam 2 simply due to the increased size of its components. The Move 2, on the other hand, is extremely loud and will likely still be the best choice for people who want a speaker to cover a large outdoor space.You’ll find familiar controls on the Sonos Play, which comes in black or white. (Fingers crossed for future color options like the lovely trio that Sonos offers on the Roam.) On the top surface are buttons for play/pause, volume up and down and a microphone toggle. On the back is a power button, a Bluetooth button and a physical switch that disconnects the microphone for increased security. Finally, there’s a new feature here: a removable plastic grab loop. Sonos was keen to note that the Play is a full-featured member of the Sonos ecosystem. Like all of its other speakers, that means you’ll see all Sonos speakers in the app and can group them as you see fit, or have different music playing on different speakers throughout the house. You can also pair two of these in stereo. If you remove one from your network (say you’re outside and away from Wi-Fi), you’ll need to re-pair them though. In addition to controlling playback via th  

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​The MacBook Neo is an absolute banger of a budget laptop, but life’s too short to live without Touch ID.  

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