HTC Desire Z - making slide-out keyboards cool again?

HTC Desire Z - making slide-out keyboards cool again? Slide-out QWERTY keyboards have been scarce on smartphones of late, but the new HTC Desire Z could spark a revival.

Back in my WinMo days I was a big fan of the slide-out keyboard on my iMate JasJam (actually built by HTC). It was a clunky beast of a phone, but the five-row QWERTY keyboard - including a dedicated row of number keys - was fantastic. I could turn the phone on its side, pop out the keyboard and type surprisingly fast with my thumbs.

I was so enamored with the JasJam's physical keyboard that I was quite reluctant to embrace the new-fangled iPhone, despite assurances from colleagues that its onscreen keyboard was surprisingly usable. I wasn't until I spent a few weeks with an iPhone, imported from the US, that I was convinced to forgo the physical keyboard to embrace the benefits iPhone's amazing touchscreen interface - a revelation compared to the cumbersome WinMo 6.

The rise of the iPhone and its many touchscreen imitators saw phone manufacturers start to shy away from slide-out keyboards. Partly it was an aesthetic move, to copy Apple's wundergadget. Perhaps it was also partly an engineering decision - I know a few people who have sworn to never again buy a phone with moving parts, after experiencing several hardware failures.