It should not have to be either or

My opinion is surely in the minority here, but I do not care. I lament the disappearance of the physical keyboard from Android phones (and all phones really).
I’ve read plenty of excuses:

• difficult to engineer a phone with a keyboard
• expensive
• forced to make performance trade-offs
• battery life is compromised

Perhaps now that Google is targeting the next billion with Android KitKat (4.4) we might see a company take a stab at a good Android phone with a keyboard. Verizon Wireless has the Droid 4 for sale, but it is coming up on 2 years old at this point and I’m not on Verizon even if I wanted to use a 2 year old phone. I look at the BlackBerry Q10 and wish that it ran Android. I know you can sideload some Android apps, but I do not want to have to compromise here. I want something that works out of the box. Plus, I use the Google Apps on an hourly basis.

Why do I want an Android phone with a physical keyboard?

I have never enjoyed typing on glass. I love being able to feel and distinguish each key by touch. The haptic feedback of an all touch device can not compare with the satisfying click of a key on a quality keyboard. I have used iOS devices and Android devices and I have never found it enjoyable to type on the glass. Navigating, zooming, dragging are (obviously) way easier to do on a touch screen. This experience makes more sense and is enhanced by the touch approach for these types of actions. Natural voice to text translation would be a mostly acceptable replacement for typing. However, voice-to-text on a mobile device is not quite there yet. The Google voice-to-text translation is pretty good for me on my Galaxy Nexus, but it still forces me to talk at an unnatural cadence to ensure accuracy. The voice-to-text also struggles with certain amounts of background noise. Finally, you can exist in a public space and type sensitive or private information, this becomes more difficult with voice-to-text.

I have never enjoyed typing on glass.

With the shortcomings of typing on glass or voice-to-text translation in mind, I think quality phones with physical keyboards died too early. Maybe, the death of physical keyboards was a necessity to push the voice-to-text and all-touch evolution forward. Mostly, everything I’ve read about the matter has been qualitative and this entire post is qualitative, but I refuse to believe that a well executed Android phone with a physical keyboard could not thrive even today. Perhaps that is just me wishing and dreaming. Or perhaps, Motorola with find a way to offer one through their new modular approach. LINK. If Motorola’s Project Ara and/or phonebloks became reality, perhaps one of the modules could be a smaller screen and a physical keyboard.

With all of today’s smartphones running on only a handful of platforms, manufacturers clearly struggle to distinguish themselves. This is why we’ve seen phones grow and grow in screen size. Even Apple gave in and made the iPhone screen larger. The LG G2 placed the volume buttons on the back of the device underneath the camera. HTC has built some beautiful looking devices with their aluminum unibody design. Ultimately, there are only so many ways to customize the location of the headphone jack and the volume and power buttons. Everything else is a specs race and often dreadful operating system customizations. The presence of a physical keyboard opens up several customization options for the manufacturer. Horizontal sliders, vertical slides, candy bar design with the keyboard always exposed. You even have the unique Motorola Backflip design .
You want to distinguish your design in this day of specs race? A physical keyboard would be different.

Sadly, even if a manufacturer takes a stab at another phone with a physical keyboard it will probably be a middle of the road device at best.

I want it all, is that too much to dream for?