At CES 2018, the physical slide-out keyboard lives on. Besides the Gemini PDA, Motorola also announced the global availability of a new Moto Mod, the Livermorium Slider Keyboard Moto Mod.
The winner of the Transform the Smartphone Challenge organised by Motorola and Indiegogo, the Livermorium Slider Keyboard Moto Mod snaps onto a Moto Z and provides a brand new typing experience for the modern smartphone. The slide-out QWERTY keyboard tilts 45 degrees for greater productivity, and is backlit for use even in low-light conditions.
While the Livermorium Slider Keyboard Moto Mod doesn’t have an internal battery and draws power from the pogo pins connecting it to the Moto phone, it is still rather thick – it almost triples the size of the ultra-slim Moto Z. On top of that, the slide-out mechanism is sometimes rather finicky, and occasionally, sliding out the keyboard may result in disconnecting the Moto Mod on one end.
The product shown here isn’t the final design, though we imagine it won’t change by much, especially when the product is expected to ship to early backers this month. It will be available in the Motorola website for $99 (about RM390) later this quarter.
