I loved that design, the keyboard was so so, but they way it would open and rotate over and end up at an incline and not parallel to the keyboard In my opinion was very cool
keep it up man
yeah that's cause they stole it from the N97 lol. I thought it was good on the N97 too, just didn't like that it was basically held up on one side. The improvement with the Nokia E7 hinge was a much better implementation. Much more solid.
Would a N950 device help you to look into such mechanism?
Although the N950 is awesome, I don't think that the hinge mechanism is available for purchase, so that would be a useless venture. N97/E7 would be better!
Okay, that Desire Z hinge is causing a lot of troubles..
The point is this: no matter what, the hinge is 9 mm thick. So either the whole case will be 9 mm thick, or you have two bulges of 3.5mm sticking out of the bottom... http://oi42.tinypic.com/2gydlyd.jpg
I love the feel of the hinge, but 9mm extra or two bulges is not acceptable for me..
maybe we/you should define a max. increase in thickness and then we'll look into how to achieve that... problem with available hinges from other phones might be that they are designed to be integrated into the phone-body, while you would simply need a mechanism that connects one other half to another other half...
edit: this just made me realize one thing: your KB has to be light and possibly there is not much sense in using a very high-level mechanism... the base of the kb-toh will be something quite similar to an original toh and it will be made out of some sort of plastic i guess... the mechanism will be integrated into this toh but it will be only as sturdy as the base toh is... that said: a mechanism that kind of snaps the phone-part in an angled position while you hold on tot the keyboard will stress that base a lot more than a mechanism that allows you to somehow move the kb while holding the heavier phone part... does that make any sense?
problem with available hinges from other phones might be that they are designed to be integrated into the phone-body, while you would simply need a mechanism that connects one other half to another other half...
that makes sense. the issue of stresses from the hinge on the case -depending on the hinge- will weaken the part and will thus increase its thickness!
new idea:
i've been looking into the bluetooth keyboard i bought. the hinge slides and then rotates (like the htc touch pro 2) and i think i've found a way to make that one work.
pro's:
-thin (+-5mm increase)
-slide + rotate (so also nice kickstand)
-40mm travel, so a lot of keyboard area (40x131mm)
cons:
-lot of exposed parts on the back (wires, slider, maybe part of pcb)
-hinge only available as part of complete keyboard
i'd say go for that ... if it works, there are a couple of ways to cover those exposed parts in the final spec (at least visually)... the white keyboard is awfull though ;D ... keep up that good work!
Honestly, i like this last solution a lot!! It seems to me much more elegant, movements are rather simpler and needs of mechanical parts are less than before!
Really well done!
