Hello,
My HTC Desire Z isn't working properly, so I am thinking about buying a new QWERTY phone with android. Does anyone know of a full list of such devices? Or have any suggestions as to what phone to go for?
I also used to own an HTC Desire Z because I felt I type better with a physical keyboard. I ended up getting an Samsung Galaxy S3 last summer because there simply were no phones with keyboards that didn't suck compared to the high end keyboardless phones. Since then, the only decent keyboard phone is this one:
Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G review: T-Mobile's QWERTY slider falls flat
Not sure if this is your carrier or if the phone is compatible with your carrier.
I type faster with a QWERTY keyboard than with any touch keyboard (even with apps made for typing faster), and type speed is the most important feature to me.
Should you decide to go with a touch screen only phone, I have this past week finally found a keyboard app that actually help me type faster and more accurately than on a physical keyboard. That app is SwiftKey 4. As a fan of physical keyboards, I suffered for half a year with my SGS3 until I got SwiftKey this past week.
SwiftKey's text prediction is so good that and the way it presents the text prediction allowed me to type faster than on my keyboard phone and is able to correct many errors allowing me to type more accurately. I turn auto-correct off, but I do have the prediction on that presents me with a choice of up to 3 words that SwiftKey thinks I intend to type. I would say that almost all the time, the text prediction's first choice is the correct one with the occasional time the second, third choice is correct. The rare time does come up when it get is wrong, but that is due to my making really bad errors. As much as I hate touch screen keyboards, I have to concede that a touch screen keyboard and SwiftKey is better than the physical keyboard of the Desire Z for me.
I suffered through months of bad typing because the SGS3 was such a good phone. I did consider ditching it for the phone I linked to you above. In the end, I'm glad I stuck with the SGS3 as I have found a more than satisfactory solution to a physical keyboard. There are many great phones out there, but none save perhaps the upcoming BlackBerry Q10 have a physical keyboard.
Should you choose to get a keyboard phone, understand that it will either be an old phone or a low end phone. If that is what you feel you need and are willing to make the tradeoff, then the above link is the best that I can do. The Motorola XT860 (I think it is also called the Droid 3) came out in the summer of 2011. Prior to that the Sony Xperia Pro came out around the same time. My wife used to use a Samsung Galaxy Q, but it really sucks and is no where near an HTC Desire Z is in power and quality.