I was a bit skeptical for the first few weeks I was using the hardware keyboard on the N810. Yes, it's not a full sized keyboard. In fact, some of the shift-key position can be downright uncomfortable at times. However, now that I've been using the device for quite some time, I must say that I've gotten quite quick as sliding it out, cranking out a sentence and sliding it back in.

That said, it certainly does not replace a bluetooth keyboard for heavy input. So for emails I'm all over the bluetooth keyboard. For text messaging, use the pullout keyboard. It's at least 10x faster than trying to use the virtual keyboard or thumb board. Okay, I'm not sure where I pulled that number from. And as mentioned by someone, it can be a bit of an irritation sometimes just getting the thumb board to appear. Plus, while the thumb board is visible, you kill much of your application's visibility -- that's probably the part I dislike the most about the thumb board.