How important is a physical keyboard?

**jm667** · 11-08-2011, 03:24 PM

I have had an old Touch Pro 2 for the past couple years and am afraid I am going to miss the keyboard if I upgrade to the RAZR or Nexus. I occasionally use the screen keyboard to type short texts or emails on my phone now, but I find I make all kinds of mistakes and it takes forever to type a long one, even though I am not typing long emails very often. I am sure the keyboards are probably more accurate on the two phones I mentioned and the fact that the screen is bigger must also help. But I am just wondering what your take is, especially if you have been using a touch screen 4 inch plus size for awhile. Is it pretty easy and accurate to type? My hands are not that big and I am a good typist on a regular computer keyboard if that factors in at all. Thanks.

**GeneB** · 11-08-2011, 03:32 PM

Some love touch screens, others including me, hate them. If you can find someone who has what you are considering see if you can spend some time playing with theirs. If not, plan on spending time at the store with them. Don't let them rush you. It's really just preference.

**eldorito** · 11-08-2011, 04:31 PM

I'm in the same position as you.. I've had a keyboard for a while and I very hesitant to get rid of it. I use a program called swype which is useful with the virtual keyboard, but still prefer the actual keyboard. Because of this, I'll probably wait to see what the Droid 4 looks like...

**jm667** · 11-08-2011, 05:14 PM

I did play around with the Bionic in the store last month and that was A LOT easier to type on the screen than on the screen of what I have now, so that could work. I think I will see when the Droid 4 is supposed to come out and see if it is much less of a phone than those other two and then decide. I think I could manage on that larger screen's keypad as it wasn't too bad, but then again it is no physical keyboard!

**OmegaWolf747** · 11-08-2011, 05:51 PM

For me, getting the phone hinges on the presence of a keyboard. I do a lot of typing and hate on screen keyboards because it's so easy to hit the wrong letter.

**jseah** · 11-08-2011, 06:10 PM

The OG Motorola Droid, Droid 2, Droid 3, and the upcoming Droid 4 all has physical keyboards. Samsung is supposed to come out with an LTE phone with a physical keyboard as well.

After getting used to, and loving, physical keyboards from using Blackberries, I thought that I would never give up a physical keyboard. When I got the OG Droid, I found myself never using the physical keyboard. Now not having one doesn't bother me a bit.

**Sam73065** · 11-08-2011, 09:10 PM

The Samsung Stratosphere is a "cheaper" LTE phone w/a kb.....

**KingBuzzo** · 11-08-2011, 10:05 PM

I thought I would miss the physical kb but I haven't at all with WP7...

The auto-correct drives me crazy but that is another story!

**lemew** · 11-09-2011, 12:46 AM

Wirelessly posted (Tour: Mozilla/5.0 (webOS/1.4.5.1; U; en-US) AppleWebKit/532.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/1.0 Safari/532.2 Pre/1.1)

Me thinks BB has the best keyboard. I prefer it to touchscreen but everyone is different.

**DreamCatcher68** · 11-09-2011, 01:57 AM

I've definitely gotten used to touchscreen only but there are times I wish I still had a keyboard. Touchscreen is simply not as accurate in my experience.

Sent from my VZW Thunderbolt.

**Sam73065** · 11-09-2011, 08:00 AM

Yes, I loved the kb on my old BB Curve. Hated the kb on the palm centro. I can use the touch screens. Although using swype is starting to cause tendonitis problems w/my thumb. I really would like to see an android phone w/a large screen and a good BB type kb come out.

Originally Posted by DreamCatcher68

I've definitely gotten used to touchscreen only but there are times I wish I still had a keyboard. Touchscreen is simply not as accurate in my experience.

Sent from my VZW Thunderbolt.

**KA7EII** · 11-09-2011, 09:26 AM

For me, I prefer a physical keyboard over the on screen keyboard. Last Fall, I spent a lot of time in the Verizon Wireless store playing with the Droid 2 and Droid X. Bigger screen on the X or physical keyboard on the Droid 2? After several visits to the store, I decided on the Droid 2 because of the keyboard. I rarely use the on screen keyboard.
Just my preference. As others here have said, your best bet is to go to the store (maybe more than once like I did) and spend time with the different phones to see which one "fits" you best.

**Dakota** · 11-09-2011, 09:49 AM

How important is a physical keyboard? To me, very important. I don't like on-screen KBs. They are slow and inaccurate (for me). If phy KBs disappear from the top phones, I'll adapt, but I won't like it.

**hwertz** · 11-09-2011, 10:14 AM

I wouldn't dream of getting a phone w/o a physical keyboard. I bet I can type 50wpm on this thing (I have nothing but IBM Model M keyboards on my home computers and can top 100wpm on those). Swype made a touchscreen marginally better, but not really good enough.

Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using HowardForums

**cbreze** · 11-09-2011, 12:47 PM

I much prefer a physical kb and the TP2 has an awesome one. I could type very fast on it. The problem is more phones these days have virtual kb's so getting a real kb on your device of choice is more limited. I have a device with a virtual now and my solution is to keep emails short and to the point, leaving the longer ones for later. When I change phones again I will be taking a harder look at what's available with real kb.