Two OMAP 3430 Phones: Nokia N900 and Motorola Droid

A tale of two keyboards

It's impossible to really go any further about the hardware without talking about the keyboards on both devices. Superficially, there's a lot of the same between them. Both the Motorola Droid and N900 are landscape sliders with full QWERTY keyboards, but that's about where the similarities end.

 

For starters, the N900 has 3 rows of keys, while the Motorola Droid has 4. The N900 also has a shallower slide out depth compared to the Motorola Droid as a result, making it feel just a bit more balanced in your hand when the keyboard is slid all the way out. The Motorola Droid includes a clickable D-pad, while the N900 just uses traditional up down left right keys. Layout is almost the same, though the N900 places the spacebar in what at first seems like a curious position at the far right of the keyboard rather than centered like it usually is.

So what's the verdict at the end of the day? The N900's keyboard is excellent, while the Motorola Droid's keyboard starts out frustrating, to put it lightly. I spent the greater part of three weeks trying to get used to the Motorola Droid's keyboard, and I'm no stranger to landscape keyboards. I've come to the conclusion that it's just hard to use. Ultimately, the problem boils down to two things: key travel depth, and tactile finger placement aide.

Let me explain myself. The first thing I'm talking about is that the keys on the Motorola Droid just don't click down enough. The travel depth feels shallow, and there's not enough of a solid click to affirm you hit the key and can go to the next one. The second thing I'm talking about is that there's very little in the way of surface features letting you know you're on the right key. Ultimately, good hardware keyboards have ridges or features that provide haptic clues for positioning fingers. Look at the blackberry keyboards, the better HTC keyboards, and other keyboards users laud as being easy to type on; they'll all have some sort of ridge, impression, depression, or feature so you know where your fingers are. That's what makes it easy to type.

Even in the photos I've taken, it's obvious that the Motorola Droid's keys are slightly concave. Look at the N900's keys - they're slightly convex. The result is that resting your fingers on the keyboard, you're instantly able to tell just about whether you're in alignment. I found myself able to instantly type just as fast on the N900 as I could on any landscape slider keyboard, whereas on the Motorola Droid I often just used the Android virtual keyboard. It's readily apparent to me at least that Motorola's primary design focus on the Moto Droid was keeping the package thin, and the inevitable tradeoff happens to be the package height of the keyboard. At the very end of my time with the Motorola Droid, I was typing faster, but nowhere near as fast as I'm used to on most landscape keyboards or even the iPhone or Android virtual keyboards. It's frustrating because I want to go faster, but just can't.

I discussed the issue with a number of my friends who own and use Motorola Droids as their daily devices. They told me that they too experienced a longer than usual break-in period before it clicked and the hardware keyboard was natural to use. I don't doubt that given a month or two, you'll start humming along at greater than 40 WPM, it just requires practice.

The keyboard is there for you to use, and nobody is entirely alike. Hopefully the Droid 2 continues to improve the hardware keyboard domes, and it'd be nice to see the somewhat maligned D-Pad disappear, as it doesn't really serve a functional purpose. The favorable trend right now appears to use a trackball like the Nexus One or optical trackpad like the HTC Droid Incredible.

Update - Droid 2 Keyboard:

I originally wrote the above paragraphs a few weeks ago. It's interesting to note that today some photos of the Droid 2 have emerged that show it lacking a D-Pad and featuring convex (raised) buttons. This is entirely for the reasons I stated above - it's easier to verify finger placement when the buttons are raised, and it also helps make them more clicky. And the somewhat useless D-Pad - well, bye bye!

Since the Motorola Droid is running a vanilla Android 2.1 installation, it's got the stock virtual keyboard in both landscape and portrait. In landscape, if you slide out the keyboard, the virtual keyboard disappears. Portrait works just like you're used to if you've familiar with Android. Of course, the usual addenda apply about being able to install any keyboard you want; that's still the case.

The N900's keyboard is thankfully clicky, and the keys are slightly wider than the Motorola Droid's. The only standout caveat with Nokia's layout choice here is the space bar. At first, it's totally awkward to have it off to the side here instead of centered like you'd expect on a desktop. However, the spacebar being located here ended up not being a problem. Just use your left thumb, and you're good to go.

The N900 also has a virtual keyboard, though the device ships with it disabled. In all honesty, since Maemo on the N900 is almost entirely landscape (with the exception of the phone dialer, which is both), you should just use the slide out the excellent hardware keyboard for data entry whenever possible.