Its hard to understand why, with so many shortcomings, things that are very practical and day-in-day-out issues, the author remains positive about his choice to switch from the blackberry to the Pre. I have seen, but not owned one so miss all the little things that make or break a device. The device choices seem to remain the same, with a new contender in the middle:

[keyboard centric activity, little browsing] - Blackberry

[some keyboard, some browser] = Palm Pre

[little keyboard activity, heavy browsing, gaming] - iPhone

I dunno... being an iPhone user for 2 years now I'm fast on the keyboard -- really fast and accurate. I also own a BB for work and I find typing on it to be quite a chore these days. I think there will come a time when people really have to re-evaluate the bad rap the iPhone keyboard gets. I admit it's probably not for everyone but lots of iPhone users are very quick and accurate with it. I suspect humans can adapt to almost any type of input/control system with enough practice.

if you have larger fingers, or long nails (for ladies), then you are going to have trouble with the iphone keyboard.

Sure, you will get used to it, and be decent at some point after lots of practice, but i still find the BB Bold/ old Curve keyboards the best in mobile keyboards.

And I work with Mobile devices, so i have tried 10s of them.

That's funny. Judging from popular gadget sizing, I've apparently got fairly large hands (e.g. I was mystified when I found out people hated the original XBox controller. I thought it was perfect).

And I do far better on the iPhone keyboard than Treo/Pearl/etc. The landscape enV and BB Bold are easier for me to hit keys accurately with, but the auto-correction on the iphone more than makes up for the added errors.

I could see a physical keyboard with iPhone-caliber auto-correction being a superior choice. But for actual use with these big grubby mitts, among devices currently available, I find the iPhone to be way out front.

I'll agree with this. The blackberry keyboard is the best keyboard on a mobile device.

I just bought a Pre this weekend. My main gripe is the keyboard. The keys are too small.The operating seems to not respond at times. Maybe they released the product too early. I just downloaded the latest update. We will see how that goes. Otherwise the Pre and the iPhone OS's are in a class by itself.

Regarding the iPhone keyboard, you can get used to it. I can type pretty fast. Also the auto correction does help. With OS 3.0 and landscape mode, it will be even better.

I posted similar, mixed experiences here:

http://kylecordes.com/2009/06/06/palm-pre-first-impressions/

For example, the Pre browser "is so tedious that I find myself browsing less than before, even though I just got a slick new device."

In spite of all that, the Pre is very slick, and I think (with some software updates) it stands a good chance of commercial success.

Is there a mirror of that site. It looks like we HN'ed the site to stone age.

Yeah, I moved it to another server. Waiting for the server to get back up for it to 301 redirect it.

Edit: It's back up.