How Did This Happen? There’s a Palm Pre in my Office on iPhone 3.0 OS Release Day

have fun with that lousy keyboard…

You mean the keyboard that the iPhone does not have? ;)

The usability of the keyboard is very underrated. Like any QWERTY keyboard on a phone, it does take a slight adjustment time, but after you get used to it, you can definitely fly on it.

As an example, it’s much better than the (much larger) keyboard on the Moto q9c, which has very mushy buttons that are all touching each other.

On the Pre, there’s separation between the buttons. I find it to be equal to the keyboard of my old Treo 755p myself, which is very high quality as far as I’m concerned.

But, of course, phones are highly personal, so what’s great for me might not work as well for someone else.

Ex- Treo user, current iPhone user for almost one year. iPhone Keyboard adjustment period = none required.

@chi – I have tried the keyboard at the Sprint store – used it for about 20 – 30 minutes which was long enough for me to know I didn’t like it – former BB user, too – loved the BB keyboard on the Curve. I’d rather have no physical keyboard than have to rely on the Pre. There is more space available on the iPhone touch keyboard than the Pre physical keyboard.

Yes – worse physical keyboard on a phone I’ve ever used and I’d never buy the Pre for that reason. I wouldn’t rule out bigger Pre’s though.

same here…Treo, 3x BBs, and faithful iPhone user since gen 1 @ $600 (or was it $700…it hurt a lot either way at the time). The keyboard issue will always have people on different sides of the fence…and it should. Fat fingers, skinny fingers, people that aim for perfect accuracy, vs those (like me) that FLY on a soft keyboard and rely on predictive type ahead, (then go back and correct when it said “Luck” when I meant to say…well, you know). All that aside, I think there are some that will never resign to absence of the tactile response of pressing a key (I used to be one of them), because that is all they have ever known. At the same time, I have many friends and co-workers – most ex-BB, that converted to the iPhone. I followed them pretty closely (being the tech evangelist that pushed them over the top) and most bitched about the lack of physical KB at first, but the other features drew them in to give it a chance. After a while, like all of us, you come to get used to the soft keyboard and the whole experience, and you can’t dream of going back to a physical KB or other device (although the Pre was tempting…for a few moments at least). I’m typing so fast on the soft KB, that I feel like anything else would hold me back now (this coming from the guy who was adamently opposed to anything other than tactile buttons)! I’ll be plunking down $299 on Friday. Yet, I still understand why others (vast majority of who have never used an iPhone for any length of time) want a physical KB. If I was back in that camp…and my carrier circumstances were different…the Pre would be a no-brainer!

The pre keyboard is so far superior to the iphone keyboard it’s no contest.