HANDHELD ELECTRONIC DEVICE WITH RECONFIGURABLE KEYPAD

摘要

A handheld electronic device has a display and a keypad, with the keypad being movable among a number of configurations that enable the "real estate" occupied by the keypad to be increased or decreased, and to correspondingly enable the viewable area of the display to be relatively decreased and increased, respectively. A first keypad portion and a second keypad portion can be disposed substantially coplanar when the keypad is in a first position and disposed noncoplanar when in a second position. The device can include a keypad and a flexible sheet-like piece of covering material structured to overlie a display, the keypad and the piece of covering material being connected together. The keypad assembly can be movable between a first position overlying a first area of a display, and a second position overlying a smaller area.