This 3D-Printable Samsung Note10+ Case Brings Back the Slider Phone — and a Physical Keyboard
If you miss the Motorola Milestone and its ilk, AdmiralSym's 3D-printable case for a modern handset should raise a smile.
Psuedonymous maker "AdmiralSym" has brought back the slider phone — with a 3D-printed cradle that turns a Samsung Galaxy Note10+ and a compact wireless keyboard into something from the early days of Android smartphones.
"It's a sliding keyboard case for a [Samsung] Note10+ running in standalone DEX mode," AdmiralSym explains of the project, referring to Samsung's "desktop" operating mode available on selected devices. "The keyboard is a G60S Pro Android TV remote/keyboard with a touchpad. The case is printed in PLA and the phone is held in the open/closed position with some spring plungers."
The design owes much to the early days of smartphones, when personal digital assistants (PDAs) were still fresh in people's minds: the Motorola Milestone, an Android 2.1 handset launched in 2009, used the same layout in which the main phone display slid up and away from a built-in ortholinear keyboard and small touch pad area.
In AdmiralSym's reimagining, it's the entire phone that slides up and away — revealing an off-the-shelf Bluetooth wireless keyboard and touchpad accessory, designed to be used with the holder's thumbs. Slide the phone back again and it's a plain smartphone once more, albeit a somewhat bulky one.
"This is the first complete iteration of this design," AdmiralSym says, "but it still requires a decent amount of refinement to be where I'd want it." Areas to be improved include adding a latch to prevent the phone from being popped past its stop-point, a wider opening for the Samsung S-Pen stylus, and an issue with the keyboard in which it deactivates when tilted beyond 90 degrees to activate a remote control on the reverse. "I have contacted an OEM [Original Equipment Manufacturer] seller on Alibaba," the maker says, "to see if they can special order one with the gyro disabled."
More information is available in AdmiralSym's Reddit post, while the 3D print files have been published on Printables under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.
