I used to think that a slide-out keyboard is always superiour, but reasons why I changed my mind are:

- The excellent work of the VKB team, I wasn't exposed to really good on-screen keyboards before

- The convenience of doing everything without switching grips, and a context sensitive keyboard (which includes the possibility of unconventional text input like swype)

- No HWKB means a much slimmer, lighter, and tighter device, and a UI that is optimised for on-screen text input (e.g. on the N900, the VKB was somewhat neglected due to the existence of the hardware keyboard)

I understand that for some very specific use cases (e.g. massive terminal use or even programming on the go...), a HWKB is a must. But for most practical purposes, I now believe that a touchscreen-only device provides the better experience.