JohnK, my ex-boss has some good thoughts on The genius of the iPhone’s keyboard that I have to agree with. I have a blackberry for work and find it very fast to type with, but a pain to have a huge form factor just to get that, and I also hardly ever text anyone with a normal phone.
I'm not sure that the iPhone isn't for the theoretical 17 year old who texts hours every day... I have a feeling that your teenagers will learn to text by feel on the iPhone, tactile feedback or not, just as they learned to text 26+ characters on a 12 key phone handset, though.
Worth a read, thanks John!
The Blackberry Pearl has a much better form factor then your 7290 and has 2 characters rather then 3 per button. My brother has a BB with that sort of keypad, but I tried it and didn't like it.
My shiny new BB 8800 is nice... much thinner and nicer to hold or slip in your pocket. And still has a full keyboard. I use it for text messaging (SMS) and email, works fine. Coming from the 'classic' blackberries it takes several days to get used to the new trackball and keyboard.