This phone has a pull out keyboard, that means you still get have a similar area to write emails that an iPhone would with a virtual keyboard.

So, for communication and entering text, I don't see how this would be inferior to an iPhone unless you are only using a virtual keyboard. For browsing, you're correct. Scrolling up on a text message in landscape mode is nearly impossible on my iPhone. The vertical screen real estate is smaller than the width of my thumb.