Honest opinion on the keyboard

[PerCompLLC]

Honestly, I may be one of the few that actually like the physical keyboard - I use it a LOT! I pretty much only use swype with the virtual keyboard, but since I use terminal emulator quite a bit, the physical keyboard is a must for me.

That said, there are definitely better keyboards out there, and there are things that Motorola did with the droid's keyboard that leave you scratching your head... But overall I am very happy with it.

 

[SinfulDragon]

There is a physical keyboard on these things?????

I almost never use it, when I do, its just for fun but I don't have any issues with it

 

[crankerchick]

i came from the HTC 6700 and then the HTC 6800, both of which I had for 2 years each. I only used the physical keyboard since the WinMo onscreen keyboard was garbage. Both of these phones had good physical keyboards.

When I got the Droid, I absolutely hated the physical keyboard. I was always hitting the wrong buttons due to the flatness, and notably hitting the 'enter' instead of backspace, juts because my fingers werne't used to where the backspace key is compared to the old phone.

The thing I hate about the onscreen keyboard in landscape is that when you are typing, you are typing in a screen for the keyboard, so you cant see the screen that you are entering the information into. This is annoying to me when I'm in a chat because the person i'm chatting with may have sent more messages but i can't see them until after i finish typing mine.

From there I started using the slide out keyboard when I'm using landscape mode, and just got myself to type slow until I got used to the keyboard. Now I would say I'm 75% satisfied with the physical keyboard. It certainly isn't close to the best out there, but its not as bad to me now as it was originally and I find I use it often when I want to see the screen I'm entering information into while I'm typing.

 

[clos1084]

I had a lot of devices to compare to: Nokia E70 & E71; HTC 8125, Tilt, & Fuze; iPhone; BB Curves, and Palm Treo 750 (prolly missing a couple phones in there somewhere)

I am actually very good on my Droid's KB. Id say I get all the keys correctly over 90% of the time and I use my phone a lot

 

[mully]

Although not perfect (I find the D-pad gets in my way...throwing the keyboard off-center) I find myself using the physical keyboard more often than not. You really do get used to it, and I can type on it pretty darn accurately. More accurately than the on-screen keyboard, thats for sure. I'm definately glad I have it!

 

[crankerchick]

I agree the dpad does seem to get in the way a bit, but i wouldn't trad the dpad at all. it is critical for cut/paste actions for me, since i'm awful at selecting text on screen with my finger.

 

[nycebo]

What I dont see mention here or other forums much is that EACH droid comes with a different slightly better RAISED keys. I have looked at many of them since I know someone..... and I can tell you that when a person says "I love my keyboard, it works great for me" that person got one of the "fair/good" keyboards.

What? Really? I hadn't heard that. My build is 43/09 and my keyboard is as flat as ever. I rarely use it ESPECIALLY since I put the Seidio Innocase on my Droid. The top row of keys is really hard to hit with my thumbs.

 

[nifer]

i *really* dislike the physical keyboard on the Droid. i have skinny fingers, but they're long and so are my nails. i'm constantly making mistakes, and it takes me a while to type out a txt/email. all that said though, i still love the damn phone

 

[Arien157]

The physical keyboard is horrible. I had a Voyager before the Droid and then keyboard on that was amazing. I don't even use the keyboard because it's that bad. But the on screen is good.