My apologies if this has been covered. I don't mind lack of portrait mode if the onscreen keyboard has ability to switch to t9 in lanscape when writing emails and sms. Does this feature exist? It may seem strange, but I think it would still allow me to write single handed without having to use both thumbs on the full qwerty.

Sry, i think only the call/phone mode has portrait. The virtual keyboard is still landscape but this whole problem is expected to be fixed on the retail device or soon after its release so don't worry.

Only thing i can tell you for sure, posted by Peter on these forums, is that portrait browsing will be fixed through an update by this xmas but i don;t think he mentioned anything about the phone functioning in portrait mode as a whole.

No. Out of the box, the only virtual keyboard available is landscape QWERTY.* The on-screen dialing pad is for dialing only.

It is possible to create new virtual keyboards, so someone from the community could make others.

* Okay, I expect it changes to QWERTZ or whatnot as is regionally appropriate. It's not T9, that's the point.

Good to know. I look forward to seeing new options for the keyboard/keypad from the community.

An interested party can probably integrate these without overly much pain.

I can to confirm that these plugins work in the N900. At least the "onehand" one.

Very cool. Will love to see these integrated into the N900.

how would you change words if using a Nokia style T9 predictive system on the T9 keyboard. Usually, you'd hit the * key, but its not present.

exactly, I need T9, im insanely fast with T9 and never need to even look at the keyboard (or screen for that matter) but course with touch its impossible.

But for 1 handed use this would be welcome. One thing I detest, is how in symbian for instance, you have to tap, then a keyboard comes up, you enter and THEN you see the whole message in the sms app.

I cant do anything at all, for instance auto complete in the browser, i have to type half way and then go back for it to auto complete, its just a pain.

If we could see the thing being typed on the actual page, like some other phones, even if it means a slightly smaller viewing area it would be most welcome.

Its actually almost the same experience with proper haptics, as I learned with the N97's touchscreen. I, too, am blazingly fast with T9.