The virtual keyboard on the BlackBerry Torch 9800 is the best virtual keyboard in the smartphone market. There I said it; though I also said in on our last CrackBerry Podcast, too. I'm a firm believer in the fact that I can use the virtual keyboard better and faster than the physical one on my Torch. Yet whenever I mention that fact to others, I get such a look of incredulity that I feel I need to back away very, very slowly. Even polls here on CrackBerry.com show that I'm in the minority.
Now when I first got my BlackBerry Torch, I admit that it was not an easy thing to learn to type on the screen. My fingers were constantly typing the letter slightly to the left (or the right) of the one I wanted. I was constantly pressing the backspace key in an effort to correct my typing on that horrible keyboard.
Then I started doing an odd thing; I began to trust the keyboard. Instead of backspacing and fixing every mistake as it happened, I just kept typing. Over time, either the keyboard began to understand me or I became to understand it. Nowadays, I sometimes think the keyboard knows what I'm trying to type better than I do.
Perhaps some of this animosity and ill-will towards the virtual keyboard comes from using those on other platforms, like iOS and Android. In this author's humble opinion, the BlackBerry keyboard is nothing like them. Added to whatever magic makes the keyboard understand what my fat fingers type is the standard CrackBerry keyboard goodness. Autocorrect and word substitution are not limited to just the physical keyboard, after all.
There are no websites devoted to mocking the poor word substitutions of the BlackBerry keyboard. And that's for a reason. BlackBerry smartphones are designed to be first and foremost tools of communication. At the heart of that communication is the BlackBerry keyboard. Your name doesn't become synonymous with communication and your devices won't be used by millions in government, business, and law enforcement if you have a crappy keyboard. And be it physical or virtual, that keyboard is still the best in the business.
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