Windows Phone hasn’t seen a lot of phones with hardware QWERTY keyboards since practically day one. The first generation of phones had a couple, such as the HTC Arrive, but since then we haven’t seen a single hardware keyboard. Once Nokia joined the team there was talk that they might bring keyboards back. Back in the day Nokia had quite a few great keyboard phones, such as the N900. Those keyboards have not come to Windows Phone yet, and it appears they won’t any time soon.
In a new interview a Nokia exec talked a little about keyboard and Lumia phones. He says that customers just aren’t demanding QWERTY keyboards anymore. We certainly agree with that assessment. He says that they are focused on touch-only models at this time. This is a smart move on Nokia’s part. Even thought they do make some of the best hardware keyboard phones the market just isn’t demanding that type of device anymore. Large companies, like Samsung, who have the resources to create many different types of devices aren’t even making keyboard phones anymore. The time has passed.
What about you? Do you miss hardware keyboards?
[via Pocketnow]
