See -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Z88 - the Z88 actually was a very good note taking machine, I got a lot of use out of mine, good battery life, decent portability and while limited, did what it said on the can. Niether the z80 r 81 had screens.

Nah. To get the correct feel here they'd have to arrange it so that whenever you thumped a key a bit too enthusiastically all bar 1k of the device's memory disappeared.

then be accurate! Where's the screen on the ZX80/81?!

Perhaps the iPhone could become just like that multi-tool bathroom buddy gadget in the original Gremlins movie. Sure it'd be bulky, but you could shave, wax, groom, use a usb keyboard and dice some carrots all at the same time.

...the fancy rotate it around to get landscape view only works in a few applications. If the application you use only supports portrait mode, you will be typing with not only 1/3 the screen obscured by the on-screen keyboard, but also with everything on it's side.

Seriously, if you need a qwerty keyboard on your phone (I do), then get a phone with one built-it, or jailbreak your iPhone / iPod Touch so you can install a proper bluetooth stack that supports BT keyboards...

If Apple wanted to, they could alloy you to pair an Apple bluetooth keyboard with your iPhone. And of course the phone would know about the pairing and not show the keyboard. Simples.

Are you listening, Steve? Hell, why not just implement full Bluetooth connectivity. Go wild, live a little.

I dunno - I had a folding keyboard for my ickle Palm m105 back in the day (when there was no way I could afford the cost or bulk of a laptop alongside my existing desktop PC and a bag chock already full of physical folders). It was just fine, folded up into an integrated carry case about the same size as the PDA, but when unfolded it braced together with clips (and the case exterior) to a solid, if slightly thin "proper" board. Reminiscent of a largish, slightly cut-price version of a typical netbook keyboard in fact. Much better than the tiny, mushy membrane or tacky chiclet jobs that made up most of its competitors.

The real problem was the PDA itself, and more specifically its software. Who would know that you could make a 16mhz M68k so unresponsive, particularly when only dealing with a 160x200, 4 greyscale display? (I cut my wordprocessing teeth on an Atari ST, for comparison) That a reflective LCD could be so hard to read in a well lit lecture theatre? Or it could be so hard to transfer plaintext in a consistently usable format from a portable device to a desktop?

Dropped the whole thing for an early 90s mono subnotebook (running on Win3.1 and 6 Tandy nicads cack-handedly soldered together) swapped for a CDR of Counterstrike and a box of washing powder (ah, studentville) in the end. Far more usable, if a bit clunky for storing addresses and alarms in.

I think there might be a lesson in that... just get one of the smaller flavours of netbook if you're that desperate for typing on the go. Or an old Amstrad NC100 (or actual Z88? Runs for a fortnight on a set of AA's allegedly because it only runs the CPU in response to a keypress). Or a windows/symbian/android/etc phone and a mini-size bluetooth board. Like... Oh, I dunno... the wireless, iSlate sized, super-thin milled aluminium jobs that come with the current iMacs? Just a thought.