King of the QWERTYs

Capacitive touch screen devices are all the rage today with the iPhone 3GS, Palm Pre, HTC Hero and BlackBerry Storm. However, there are still many people who want a non-touch screen forward facing QWERTY device that is heavily focused on messaging. While I tend to bounce around quite a bit between different devices, the forward facing QWERTY form factor is one of my absolute favorite. To help you figure out which of these devices might fit your needs we are going to present a three part feature (with a summary post too) looking at the best QWERTY devices running the BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Symbian operating systems available from US wireless carriers. The three selected devices are the RIM BlackBerry Tour, T-Mobile Dash 3G, and Nokia E71x.
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Touch screen smartphones are all the rage today with the iPhone, Palm Pre, and Google Android devices. However, there are still millions of people who enjoy a messaging experience on forward facing QWERTY smartphones. We will be taking an in-depth comparative look at the top three smartphones running Symbian, Windows Mobile, and BlackBerry operating systems.


Bottom view of the BB Tour, T-Mobile Dash 3G, and Nokia E71x (top to bottom).


Left side of the BB Tour, T-Mobile Dash 3G, and Nokia E71x (top to bottom).


Right side and top of the BB Tour, T-Mobile Dash 3G, and Nokia E71x (top to bottom).


Back view of the BB Tour, T-Mobile Dash 3G, and Nokia E71x (top to bottom).


Here you can get a glimpse of how each of the three keyboards compare to each other.


The BB Tour, Dash 3G and E71x forward facing QWERTY keyboards.