Droid Reviews Are In

At least from PCWorld. The short of it is: Great OS, great screen, crappy physical keyboard, clunky (read: large) hardware.

I'll throw my own $0.02 in here, just because. Before iPhone everyone and their brother trotted out smartphones with physical keyboards (whatever that even means today – if you don't know what I'm getting at there's plenty of people on the InterTubing discussing how "smartphone" doesn't really apply anymore, the devices are really all portable computing devices). Anytime anyone piped up about a virtual keyboard the consensus was that it couldn't be done well enough to be usable. Then, as we all know, Apple put out the iPhone with, yep, a virtual-only keyboard. And, oh my, the shit storm that swirled around from RIM and Palm and Microsoft about how a virtual keyboard was so inferior to an honest-to-goodness physical keyboard with their ultra-small keys and super-tight spacing. Yeah, that didn't last long. Now, of course, everyone and their brother is racing to put a virtual keyboard into their devices.

With the level of tech available today I think virtual keyboards will eventually completely replace physical keyboards. Why? Well, with the right algorithms you can correct for user typing errors with a virtual keyboard. Just ask Apple. Physical keyboards don't really give you that kind of freedom. Also, physical keyboards take up space, adding bulk to devices that everyone wants to be as slim and light as possible.

Of course, like most things in human life, physical vs. virtual keyboards are a religious debate, and each person has an opinion. Kind of like an asshole. But, the market seems to be pushing for virtual keyboards, even if a physical one is available. Eventually, whether you believe in the god-of-virtual-keyboards or not, the physical keyboard on portable computing devices will disappear.

Like the dodo and Summer Arctic ice.