This is an all-touch device, so a touch keyboard is your only method of inputting text. It better be damn good, right?
The keyboard on the BlackBerry Torch 9850 is probably the worst touch keyboard I have ever used. I actually think the keyboard on the Storm was better than this.
In portrait mode, it's useless. Add in RIM's horrible autotext correction: "haha" becomes "Bags," "thats" doesn't replace with "that's," and so on. Plus, the design makes no sense. On such a cramped layout, why would you waste space adding two shift keys, one on either side of the keyboard? Why is there a dedicated comma key and period key?
The worst is part is that the keyboard only has two layout configurations that I have found, one for the standard layout and one for the Web browser. Typing in the "to:" field of an e-mail is apparently the same as typing a message to a BlackBerry Messenger contact -- the keyboard key placement doesn't change as it would on other platforms to make commonly used keys more readily available in each scenario.
A cost-cutting trimmed 2,000 jobs as RIM shifts focus to its new operating systems.
