Sprint's strange fascination with hardware keyboards - Moto's future at Sprint

Ever since RIM stopped releasing new phones Sprint has tried to use Moto phones as a Blackberry substitute - middle-of-the-road specs with hardware keyboards (XPRT, Admiral, Photon Q LTE) while ATT & Verizon got the Droid and RAZR lines of flagship phones. Now that Blackberry is filling the hardware keyboard void again will Moto start showing Sprint some Android flagship love? Is Sprint too bogged down in iPhone commitments, Samsung hegemony and filling their lineup with newcomers (ZTE, Wai Wei) and backbenchers (HTC, Kyocera, LG) to worry about Motorola anymore?

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Originally Posted by SERO wireless [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]

Ever since RIM stopped releasing new phones Sprint has tried to use Moto phones as a Blackberry substitute - middle-of-the-road specs with hardware keyboards (XPRT, Admiral, Photon Q LTE) while ATT & Verizon got the Droid and RAZR lines of flagship phones. Now that Blackberry is filling the hardware keyboard void again will Moto start showing Sprint some Android flagship love? Is Sprint too bogged down in iPhone commitments, Samsung hegemony and filling their lineup with newcomers (ZTE, Wai Wei) and backbenchers (HTC, Kyocera, LG) to worry about Motorola anymore?

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There's a niche for physical keyboards. Alot of heavy email and and texters prefer them. Obviously there is demand for these keyboards or manufacturers wouldn't produce them.

I am one of those who prefer a physical keyboard. You may feel there are too many out there, but I've yet to find one with an Android phone with a decent keyboard. It's the ONLY thing I miss about my old BlackBerry Curve.

--Charlene

This thread isn't about loving or hating hardware keyboards - it's about Moto's future at Sprint. While it's possible that Google will put together a flagship Moto phone with a keyboard it's unlikely. Even if they did there are several threads (some can be found in this forum) about Moto's hardware keyboards becoming unreliable after just a few months. I hope Sprint doesn't drop Moto entirely, but I'm having a hard time seeing what Moto's future at Sprint would look like.

I think we need to see what Moto's future looks like in general before we start making guesses about Sprint. Motorola is transitioning to Google ownership, and their whole product line is changing. We have no idea in what direction Motorola is heading with their device portfolio, and we won't know for another 6-12 months. Right now, we're just waiting for Google to exhaust the current product lineup.