You're right, it's better, since you don't have to sacrifice screen area for the keyboard

There were Android phones with keyboards. I had the chance to play with a prototype in 2009 (yes, this was after the iPhone)

Not good. Not good at all.

You don't have to sacrifice screen space for a physical keyboard... http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/DROID_3.j...

That form factor is fine, although not popular with consumers. I had a Droid 2 for a while, and found myself using the soft-keyboard more and more, particularly while not using connectbot.

I had one of the first generation Droids, and much preferred that form factor to any later smart phone I had, largely because of easy access to keys normally hidden behind layers of menu.

Yes, the prototype I tested was similar

But the keys are too small for the fingers (IMHO). And it's a fragile item in the hardware.

The problems I had with it were primarily related to build-quality I think. The 'i' key wore out after several months for example. I think these problems could likely be fixed by not skimping on the parts, but who knows.