Carl Sagan even had a chapter about it and a photo in the book Cosmos from 1980. That's where I first read about this as a boy.

This fails for people who send emails for a living, can't bring their laptop everywhere, and are not in a private location situation to use voice to text.

Except ....your last sentence doesn't apply to the historical users of slide phones: People who send emails for a living. They may need that keyboard at night. Lets call them power users. The rise of the everyman using these phones means that the phone makers can ignore the power users and still make money.

I also do not agree with your reasons for why they are not produced - your suggestions have been refuted elsewhere in the comments - For examples, the keyboards have been very reliable and rarely fail.

Younger people also do not use email for a living. They send short and sweet social messages by text or facebook.

The number of people who send email for a living is still the same, but the number of people who use the phone as a glorified web browser only has grown exponentially to the point that power users can now be ignored and a big profit still can be made.

Do you need to send emails for work? I suspect that this lack of understanding of why people like physical keyboards is that email is out of favor for social/casual users of the internet. They do phone activities by text or facebook. Short and sweet social messages.

Once you have to send work emails in situations where you do not have your laptop you would probably change your tune.

To answer your question - thicker and heavier (and even cooler) take a far backseat to the physical keyboard for people who send emails for a living.

LOL. No capitalization whatsoever. Did you post this from your touchscreen phone where the shift key is a PITA?

The Enact is not a world phone like Droid 4 was. If you need a slider because you send business emails, there's a decent chance you will find yourself in foreign countries.

Phones can be configured such that the email looks normal.

Again, assuming you have a job that requires you to occasionally email customers while on the go..... You already have a smartphone. Why not use it with a physical keyboard instead of carrying around a laptop?

>A couple of paragraphs is a "significant amount[s] of typing" for you?

Yes, it is enough typing that I would want a physical keyboard. It's not just one email either.

Those websites are way out of date. The Droid 4 is no longer available on Verizon and that is just one example.

Many of those kind of websites update the "change date" to attract google page rank, even when the content has not changed in years.

I put into that website "Verizon", "Available in US", "Slider" and "World Roaming".

Nada.

These were the capabilities of the Droid 4.

Buy a new in box Droid 4 on eBay asap. I figure you have another year before they are hard to find.

Never had a problem with the keyboards with any of the droid sliders I have owned (currently have a Droid 4).

A big issue, which you dismiss, is that you lose half of the screen real estate to the keyboard, which can be a big pain.

Finally, the pain of entering non-standard text (or even capitalization) seems to have led to very poorly written posts on various message boards (no capitalization, or lack of symbols used)

As an owner of each one of the Droid sliders, I will say that the only parts that went bad were the on off buttons and the batteries.

Never had a single problem with the keyboards. Awesome devices. (Still on a Droid 4 and about to buy a backup from eBay)

>Honestly if you're using the phone for significant amounts of typing anyway you're doing it wrong.

Care to explain in more detail why you think that? Only a phone has the form factor to fit in my pants pocket. Sometimes when I only have my phone with me, I need to compose a several paragraph email for work.