Typing in 'the zone': Why the physical QWERTY keyboard still matters to some

You've probably switched over to typing on your smartphone's touch screen, but don't discount the physical QWERTY keyboard as dead just yet.

BlackBerry's upcoming smartphone, dubbed the "Mercury," includes a physical keyboard, a major feature which is part of the company's legacy but has been left out of recent models. The new phone marks a return to BlackBerry's roots — fitting given it's the last one the Waterloo, Ont.-based company has designed and engineered in-house.

"No one else is building QWERTY keyboards on a smartphone, really," said Michael Fisher, a Boston-based technology reviewer who goes by the nickname Mr. Mobile. "I don't see a lot of people jumping back from touch screen to QWERTY."