You took the words right out of my mouth..... my prediction is that they would sell more of these than they could imagine. I have never used a qwerty keyboard as perfect as on the 7290. Since I prefer to have roominess and a comfortorble keyboard, the size of the device does not matter as much as I'm using it two handed anyway. I love everything about the 7290 if it just had the internals of the 8700. The bright beautiful display, faster processor, etc.

While I understand this trend towards thin, light and small, there's a limit when it comes to the type of device. I think that the proposed BB above would be perfect for those of us that do huge amounts of email. Just make it one, of the several model offerings from RIM/BlackBerry.

Cheers

Yeah the funny part of my experience is that I just started using a BB 6 months ago. And I've tried everyone of them. I actually purchased a 7290 next to last, in the quest for a good keyboard. Then the 8800 came out and at least for me, that's a better keyboard than the 8700. And yet my all time favorite is my 7130c as it has a great keyboard, as far as the more current models are concerned. . However because of the smaller display I prefer to use it as a great weekend phone.

I would like something like we are talking about here for my main work week BB. I like the larger display and if I'm going to type two handed using a full qwerty keyboard, I want the 7290 form factor.

Cheers...