A topic of perennial interest, and running in parallel with my pimping of the Nokia E7 Communicator, I stuck my head above the parapet in Phones Show 164 this week, declaring that the full width qwerty form factor is essentially dead, in terms of new products, using oldies like the Windows Phone-powered HTC 7 Pro, the Android-powered Milestone 2 and, yes, the Symbian-powered E7, as examples. Happily, it seems that Qwerty will live on, in the smaller form factor, at least.

Entitled "Qwerty is dead, long live Qwerty", here's the show in question, embedded for your convenience. (See here to watch it on the original page or on YouTube).

Not surprisingly, there was quite an active followup discussion, both in the YouTube channel and in the postbag generally, forming the basis for Phones Show Chat 130, which we recorded yesterday evening. Around an hour long, we go into detail on the pros and cons of Qwerty, among many other smartphone topics.

Comments welcome here too. Have large-screened touch-centric phones now rendered full width qwerty keyboards redundant? Will we see more compact 'thumb qwerty' devices in the Symbian world? Will we see a followup to the HTC 7 Pro in the Windows Phone world?