I'm afraid I got bad news here - http://discussion.forum.nokia.com/fo...d.php?p=646778

Contemplating on what to do with my pre-order now

It is only what is drawn on the keys. It will be trivial to change the function of the keys to whatever you wish. According to my experience with the N810, you get used to it very quickly.

also, i guess for most users the keyboard will be a tool for typing text, right? having frequently used characters only accessible via Fn isn't an option. - It's most annoying already the way it is with the N810 and its placement of 'ß' (even though i admit i wouln't know where else to put it on this tiny keyboard).

the Czech keyboard is QWERTY, with the two navigational arrows replaced by symbols i want to protest and change it, it sucks

@JayOnThaBeat
Where did you get the info that Polish layout will have 4 cursor keys?
Do you have any info about locating of native polish chars on the keyb?
Will it be realized as in normal keyboards?

@benny1967
(For those who don't know: Poland and USA use the same keyboards, hehe).
We type polish chars by pressing rightAlt+'a' or 'c' or 'e' etc...
It's not so inconvenient as typing in Eng.

the n97 had a swiss keyboard without "ß" and an own "." key, whereas the german version had a seperate "ß" key, without a distinct "." key which sucked!

i received an email from nokia.ch, apparently they are not planning to have a swiss keyboard with the n900 which is a let down!

i really hope that the german n900 has a seperate key for the ".", or else you aould have tp press the blue key to press the "." as a special character.. :-/

hmm, this doesn't sound very good

But I'm wondering how they will manage the swiss-french keyboard. They cannot use the french one, since it is radically different...maybe us swiss-french people will have to use the german layout as well...

I'm beginning to wonder if I will not buy one in the US (I don't really ind the QWERTY layout... (full arrow keys) > (local layout)) in my upcoming trip there, but the warranty problems that may stem from that don't please me...maybe a trip to London will be the best solution?

Where have you seen that? On the official site (nokia.cz) they don't mention the physical keyboard details at all, talking just about the "plnohodnotná hmatová klávesnice QWERTZ s predikcí slov" meaning a full touch keyboard QWERTZ with word prediction, i.e. the on-screen keyboard.

Neither Nokia CZ nor its retail partners were able to tell me anything about the physical keyboard. Too bad. And what is worse, N900 is not available for pre-order from these parties mentioned. What one can do:

- leave your number, they put you in a queue and claim to call you when the device is ready for you in the store (i did it with a Prague Nokia authorised reseller)

- pre-order through a 3rd party channel, e.g. Alza.cz - they claim the physical keyboard layout is QWERTY (no further details though), but when I contacted them, they were unable to confirm the information and the site explicitly says that the tech specs. may vary and they do not guarantee it. Recently (don't know when exactly) they changed the device availability to 9.11.2009 from something near to mid-october.

I'm gonna purchase the device in the UK.
+ standard non-crippled QWERTY physical keyboard layout
- intl. warranty, high price, even higher price due to additional shipping or travel expenses

Interesting... pre-ordered mine from digitec.ch, which claim n900 to have a QWERTZ keyboard. If you say that nokia doesn't have a swiss keyboard for the n900, could it mean that we're going to be sold german QWERTZ models instead?

Hope not, cannot imagine anything more useless than a dedicated "ß" key on my phone. =/

@ziller- according to nokia.ch ist will have a "ß" which sucks..