Hardware keyboards - N900 excepted - usually meant a thicker phone or a poorly designed one... like the top heavy Dell Venue Pro for instance.

Most people don't consider Blackberry - they usually lose screen real estate - a success for hardware keyboards. I'm in the middle. Don't make my phone too thick, but make it where I'd use it more than the on-screen keyboard, they have to get more right than wrong.

That's not the case usually.