[T-Mobile myTouch 4G Slide] SiberianLeopard:
[MENTION=5720423]joel.maxuel[/MENTION], you have an interesting point when you said that a flagship device is needed for the keyboard to survive.

At the time, the myTouch was a flagship device. At the T-Moblie store I worked at every one of the guys I was working with had one. One had a red one, one had a white one, and I had LG Doubleplay (which is terrible phone, by the way) that I only got because it had two screens, which defeated the purpose of a battery.

While useful, the keyboards take up a little extra battery with the backlight. As far as the Doubleplay goes, the second screen combined with the keyboard just made the battery drain like someone who won the lottery throws away their money on houses, cars, etc. I never looked into Cyanogenmod for it, although that would be AWESOME with 4.x.x, having that extra screen for messaging and the top screen for whatever else so I can watch videos while I text.

Another device for the keyboard issue is the Kyocera Echo.

I don't know how many of you are familiar with the device, but it had two screens, which could be used in tandem with each other, you could pull an image onto both screens expanded so the image took up both screens. It was an extremely advanced version of the Doubleplay. The second screen was also the keyboard, which I didn't like because there was no physical feedback except the vibration of the phone. I liked the myTouch that when I was working for T-Mob I almost bought one, however I forgot about it as soon as I had access to the Sidekick 4G. What I liked about that phone was the lock screen, which displayed the time in words rather than the numbers. The trackpad was a joke, never worked properly, but it had a decent processor and a decent amount of RAM for 2.2 Froyo.

The keyboard was excellent, it had pretty good functionality. The buttons were really, really well spaced. There was no room for accidentally pressing a key and sending a text sending something really inappropriate instead of something harmless. Froyo is like Windows XP.

The downside of the Sidekick was that you almost always had to use both hands to press the soft keys, which I found to be almosed completely useless. Samsung did a terrible job of designing it. I have almost always had a keyboarded phone, and that's why I have switched carriers so much. T-Mob has always had the best Android phones, by far. Verizon's are also moderately decent, but T-Mob's were the best.

My favorite phone ever, was the G1. Forgive me, but I totally forgot about the spitting image of Google. Poorly designed, ugly, but very, very easy to use. I found out that it went all the way to ICS, and I threw mine out just about the time that ICS came out. The keyboard was the best addition to the phone that HTC could have added. The keyboard was snug, good for my (at the time) small fingers (I was 13). The trackball didn't light up, which was disappointing, that's what I liked about Blackberries (but blackberries themselves are a joke). When the myTouch 3G Slide came out, my friend got one and then he gave it to me. Even though it was slow as $#!+ the keyboard was the best thing (As I type this I realised that HTC had a thing for keyboards) about the phone.

My final point: Keyboards were a very, very important part of Android history. While keyboards had a fad, and like most things, they will make a come back. They might not be on major devices, but they will be on devices that will be supported enough for Cyanogenmod and the likes. I visited a AT&T store about a year ago and there were a couple of Android phones with keyboards. I look at foreign markets occasionally, and there are some companies that have keyboarded Android phones with decent specs (like a 2.2GHz quad core ARMv7 processor and an Adreno 430) but their hardware is cheaply made and the ratings that were translated by Google said that the hardware burned up fast. Battery life was almost zero.

Conclusion: wait a few years, or go live in China or Japan.

Edit

Oh, and by the way, I found this:

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/artic...ils_leaked_on_upcoming_mytouch_android_sequel

The phone looks like a combination between the myTouch 4G Slide and the 3G Slide, but there's no "chin" or whatever. The face is completely flat.

Personally, I think this one looks really cool. I have no idea why HTC didn't go with this design, I think it's really good, but instead they went with the original design of the current myTouch 3G Slide, which is what the 4G Slide is based off of.

What do you guys think?