Likewise. My N950 has an incredible keyboard -- it even have a proper control key -- but its operating system is completely dead in the water. There don't seem to be any modern Android phones that run on GSM and have physical keyboards. The Phonon Q has its SIM card soldered to the phone. I just ordered a Galaxy S Relay off ebay, which is last year's hardware and its physical keyboard is supposed to be kind of bad anyway. The state of physical keyboards in phones these days is terrible. The [overpriced] Blackberry Q10 is tempting for its hardware, and the fact that it comes with an Android runtime, but I don't really want to run QNX or have a smartphone running a bunch of obscure HTTP servers with pf managing the security between them -- or whatever bizarre model they're using.

I wish Shuttleworth would have added the physical keyboard and advertised it as the natural progression of the N900/N950. I would have purchased a few of them.

It seems like the percentage of people who want a physical keyboard on their phones is good deal smaller than those who don't. So it makes sense to cater to the majority initially and then if that's successful to bring out a physical keyboard variant. There's no point in saying that you would have bought the Edge if only it had a physical keyboard. You are not the target market.

Why don't you make a HN poll and find out? Link the poll to here. Smartphones a) should b) should not have a physical keyboard Or something like that!

How about those phones that can slide and open to show a physical keyboard, probably too costly and error prone I guess

I have a Nokia N86, I love it, and use it alongside my android "phone" (which is basically a tablet for my use case).

My ideal design would be an Android-powered Blackberry Torch format (with a slightly larger screen).

There is already a myriad of mini keyboards on ebay, although I haven't used any but some of them look sufficiently good to use along side a smartphone. In the future I think they will improve to the point where people who want a physical keyboard will just buy it separately.

Finally, someone who really gets it. Now our last hope for the next N9x0 is Jolla.

Yep. It remains to be seen whether or not they release SailfishOS for the N950. I sure hope so.

How did you get an N950? And also, why dead in the water? It's still the most open and upgradeable mobile OS I've ever seen on a real device.

The OS is closed source, so I can't fix long standing show stopper bugs myself, and Nokia has ceased all development on it.

There's a language button right on my Nexus 4 keyboard for fast-switching between languages.

I would never need to write in more than one language in the same message, so it's as simple as 2 taps to switch the entire phone dictionary. I'm not sure how it could get any easier?

  I would never need to write in more than one language in the same message.

Bon Appetite! Wait, are those quesadillas of surimi?

Ok, this was an exaggerated example using French, English, Spanish and Japanese (although most people would consider the message as English only due to the fact that the words/concepts don't exist in English).

But being honest I find myself often writing messages that combine words of different languages because the words/concepts doesn't exist in the language I'm writing.

In the past I didn't even had to think about it, because I simply wrote what I wanted to write, but the fact that I'm forced to struggle with text prediction has made me put more attention in those details.

I often use english words in Japanese messages I write, and writing roman characters in the Japanese interface is a miserable experience. I'm toggling back and forth pretty often.

Considering the limited options I was afraid what I'd have to choose from after my HTC Desire Z (T-Mobile G2 in the US IIRC). But since Swiftkey I enjoy typing on a screen. And I regularly write in English and German, often in the same message. It's faster and with less errors than typing on a physical (mobile) keyboard. The only gripe I have left is the lack of space but there is probably nothing one can do there.

But then I'm only writing short messages on my phone and nothing longer than maybe 2 paragraphs.

Blackberry user by chance? I was checking out the Blackberry Q5 and it has a roomy keyboard, along with a touchscreen OS.

I've never had an issue with virtual keyboards, and in fact preferred them, but the Q5 has changed my thinking.

Q5: http://global.blackberry.com/smartphones/blackberry-q5.html

I am genetically designed to never use a Blackberry.

Not joking, my hands and fingers are big... I can print a document using a single hand in a keyboard that doesn't have a Right Ctrl key using my thumb and pinky.

They probably cost too much and limits screen size. A bit too much to ask.

I can't write well on my touch screen too (and it is note 2) but I don't miss a key pad, screen size is a lot important for me.

Maybe web sites will start using touch screen friendly authentication methods along with a regular password (like that connect to dot screen)? I hate entering my passwords on my phone too

For all the other benefits of the phone, I'd live with that. At least you 'can in theory' dock the phone and then use a 'standard' keyboard.

Placing a physical keyboard on the device would probably make it weaker and thicker/bigger.

Those that like typing on physical keyboard give MessagEase a thumbs up for touch input.

I wonder if that has to do with the current "race to the bottom" for smartphone prices. Razer thin margins would force manufacturers to cut any parts they can, since most users won't pay a price premium for the keyboard.

SwiftKey for Android has worked really well for me when typing in different languages

That's getting more limiting all the time.

They work well for most of us. Consumers have expressed a pretty clear preference for large screen size over any inconvenience of virtual keyboards.

The problem is that unlike most other electronics-related branches I can think of there's actually not so much diversity in smartphones. It's like the product is directed at 100% of the market while only, say, 90% of the market really wants it. The others are left in the cold, but buy anyway since there's no other option.

Compare this to e.g. audio equipment which I consider a more 'normal' market system. There's the typical consumer stuff, there's the more professional stuff and then in the high end professional devices there's even subclasses. This seems completely absent in the cellphone market, where every player just follows the rest. At least. that is my impression.

That's the sad part of this story, I'm pessimistic enough to predict that in the future only bootleg android vendors will offer what I'm looking for, it sucks to be in a niche that manufacturers don't care about anymore...