Pocketables: 10 Reasons UMPCs Need Keyboards

Is this a debate that never ends or is it actually over? Kevin Tofel posted an article on jkOnTheRun Friday in response to the news that Samsung’s Q2 UMPC comes with a split keyboard wondering if there really is a need for keyboards/thumb boards on UMPCs. Pocketables picked up on that and this morning offers 10 Reasons UMPCs Need Keyboards. Let’s forget for the moment that the less than stellar marketing of the Ultra-Mobile PC on launch opened the door for complaints about lacking a keyboard. That big mistake aside, I think the perception is that the market has spoken. True or not Samsung has heard it, has have others. In reality, it all goes back to Rob’s point in this post and one I made awhile ago: the object is user choice for data input.

Of course, I could be wrong. Steve Jobs is betting a large part of his orchard on touch as an input method as Apple is about to launch the iPhone. We’ll see how that turns out.