Totally agree. Droid 4 (and Psion 5) have awesome keyboards. My understanding is that there are several patents in this space that need to be licensed, coupled

Totally agree. Droid 4 (and Psion 5) have awesome keyboards. My understanding is that there are several patents in this space that need to be licensed, coupled with everyone wants to copycat the best selling phones, and don't want to design a "niche" product that looks old fashioned. Google's Andy Rubin has a patent on one design! https://www.google.com/patents/US8488778 https://www.google.com/patents/US8488778 It's also difficult to design a slider with a large screen and not have the phone be unwieldy. http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/15/5104704/i-come-not-to-praise-qwerty-but-to-bury-it http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/15/5104704/i-come-not-to-pra... "And that's where you run into trouble with physical keyboards, according to Motorola's Rick Osterloh. Keyboards "make it so you have to cut the screen size down, or have a slider form factor which adds a considerable amount of cost, thickness, and weight to the product."