[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] dbpaddler:
Don't think you're slipping either of those in your pocket. And I don't do many from scratch. I'm usually modifying existing ones. The ability to edit with a hard keyboard is leaps and bounds better than on a slate. I don't understand why none of these 3rd party keyboard apps have:

1. dedicated number row & directional keys. Not one has both.

2. The ability to select text by holding the shift key and arrow keys. Multitouch within the keyboard itself seems to be non-existent.

And SwiftKey is the worst with adding real functionality to their keyboard. The top vote getting suggestions with the most comments that aren't theme or language based get no response from them including ones they said they are working on. Hell, their tablet version removed the directional keys, and putting them back has been in the planning stage for almost two years.

And I don't buy the R&D thing one bit. Nobody has made a solid slider since the Epic. It was the last one to go toe to toe with the slates, component wise. Ever since they've been crippled in design, components and what not. Never a true premium phone, yet they carried the premium price. And if you're going to bring a subar phone on the market, of course it won't sell. Of course the company will believe there is no market for sliders, but they'll believe it for the wrong reasons. Look at the Mach and Photon Q. Both screwed the pooch, but at least the Mach was marketed properly as mid grade. And Samsung really screwed the pooch with the two Stratospheres and the Tmob slider. If you can negatively innovate, that's what they did. Based all three of those phones off of the Epic while their slates took big leaps. They didn't sell well? Can't imagine why.

Sliders in general are fairly mature design wise and with larger phones with over 4.5" screens, there is plenty of real estate from a footprint point of view to easily shave off some thickness from the latest slider designs. Seriously, take the S3, reverse the curve of the screen side and sandwich it with the keyboard side which looks like the S3 with a keyboard instead of a screen and call it a day.

Blackberry should've taken a stab at one this go around. The q10 is an insult in a day of media centric devices. Palm should have taken a stab at it with webOS. WP8 should make one now and go after the business crowd hard and put Blackberry to bed. Nokia can make a good slider. Play up the business side of WP8. Innovation in slates is dwindling and becoming gimmicky. This thread was created just to talk about features you miss in your current phone. And there's always a contingent that say they'd buy a slider if someone made a premium one. On the Sprint side alone there were people that stuck with the Epic well into the S3, but the technology leap was too much to ignore at that point.

Yeah, that makes sense. You can fit it in your pocket right next to the portable table you need to carry around so you always have the flat surface you need to type on it. Don't forget the kickstand case you need for your phone or a separate kickstand so you can prop up the phone for viewing while typing.

And to hit the R&D comment again. Samsung can create a quad core dual screened Android T9 flip phone, but a premium slider is cost prohibitive. And that phone is almost a 3rd gen as they made a Bada one last year, and an ultra premium one in 2010 that roughly cost close to $900. I'm sure that one had a great ROI.

And my soapbox rant is over. Don't want this topic to take over the thread like it has for the past so many posts. Not that I was helping the matter.