Hi! I'm new to windows phone and I'm thinking about buying this phone. Is the home, back and search buttons part of the 3.8 screen? It might be a bit small for me if the buttons take up space of the screen.
No. If a phone has 3.8" screen, that means you can use the full 3.8" screen itself. Below there will be hardware buttons (Capacitive keys) and it's not included as that 3.8" screen.
Our 3 main buttons are separate capacitive buttons and are not on screen and do not count. The context sensitive buttons however do count as part of the screen.