Re: MS needs to stop with this "business" nonsense and build a phone with a physical keyboard
A Blackberry Q10 user here. My Q10 was produced in May 2013, no double type so far.
I also consider myself to be a Microsoft fan, and I own multiple Windows 8.1 computers and a Windows tablet, and I rely on Microsoft office, outlook, and Onedrive everyday. Logically, I also wanted to get a Windows phone, but couldn't because no Windows flagship has a physical keyboard and a user replaceable battery. One thing I learned from owning various mobile electronics is that the current rechargeable lithium batteries still have a long way to go, and they are usually the first ones to fail if you own a phone longer than a year, so the lack of user replaceable battery in a Windows flagship was an immediate turn off.
Then there is the physical keyboard, it is absolutely essential in a phone for me. Here is why.
1) If you spend long enough learning the physical keyboard, you could actually type without looking on the keyboard. This also means that I can type when I walk, or when I am talking to other people. My fingers can do their own work, and I don't have to look at the phone when I type. This does not come over night, so you would not get this point if you are just trying a physical keyboard phone at a store.
2) Shortcut keys. The OS has to optimize this, but since the keys are always available, the user can use the keys as shortcut functions in apps and in the main screen. Actually improves the user efficiency quite a bit here.
3) Accuracy. Typing is not all about speed. Even though the touch screen can be faster for some people. Touch screen also creates more errors, and that means people have to go back to the paragraph and fix errors every couple sentences, whereas people with physical keyboard might be negligibly slower when they first type, but they do not have to go back and fix error. And Swype can only go so far, because we actually use a lot of words (brandnames, slangs, person names, town name, etc) that are not actually in the dictionary to be predicted by the software.
All in all, unless there is a Windows phone with a physical keyboard and a removable battery, or at least one of the two. I unfortunately do not see myself ever considering a Windows phone, which is a damn shame because I am an ex Nokia Symbian user, and I would definitely like to try some Nokia phones.