Survey asks: Would you buy a touchscreen phone again?

A new survey finds that less than half of touchscreen phone users would stick with a touchscreen for their next handset—although the numbers change depending on the specific phone in question.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog links to this survey of 3,000 mobile chatters in France, Germany, and the U.K., and the overall numbers don't speak well of touchscreen phones: namely, just 47 percent of those with a touchscreen phone say they'd buy one again.

Analysts for research firm Canalys say that the numbers indicate that even "with experience, a significant proportion of users have not been totally won over" by recent touchscreen hardware and UI design," although it's worth noting that phones from Apple (the iPhone, natch), HTC, and Samsung performed somewhat better in the survey than other manufacturers. (The survey brief doesn't break out those numbers, unfortunately.)

The question gets more interesting when you think about phones like the Palm Pre and the new Motorola Droid, both handsets that come with built-in QWERTY sliders. Having a slide-out QWERTY in a touchscreen phone gives you the best of both worlds, of course, but there's a catch: a physical QWERTY keypad means more bulk, and more weight.

As for me—an iPhone user—I'm pretty much in the all-touchscreen, all-the-time camp. Indeed, when I tested the new Droid, I found myself doing all my tapping on the touchscreen; I had to keep reminding myself that there was a slide-out QWERTY at my disposal.

On the other hand, there are plenty of people I know who swear by physical QWERTY keypads and refuse to get a smartphone—much less a touchscreen smartphone—without one, regardless of the extra bulk.

And as the survey results indicate, not all touchscreen smartphones are made equal. The iPhone, the Palm Pre, and the latest Android phones from HTC, Motorola, and Samsung all boast easy-to-use, intuitive touchscreen interfaces (if you ask me, anyway), while other handsets—some recent "feature" phones, or Windows Mobile devices—have had their touch UIs slapped on as an afterthought, and it shows. (Indeed, when it comes to Windows Mobile, a stylus is still pretty much a necessity.)

That said, if I had to pick my single biggest criticism about touch interfaces in general, it would revolve around performance: nothing makes a touchscreen phone tougher to use than a poky interface that take a second or so  to register a fingertap. Some of the early Android phones suffered from this problem, although the new Motorola Droid seems pretty peppy, and the iPhone 3GS responds almost instantly to touch. But the first BlackBerry Storm was a slowpoke, which made tapping out messages an exasperating experience. (The Storm ultimately got much faster thanks to a series of firmware updates.)

So, I ask you, touchscreen phone users: Would you go the touchscreen way again? If so, do you prefer touch-only or a handset with a slide-out QWERTY keypad? How do you like the touch UI you're using now?

Related:
Survey: Less than half of touchscreen users prefer touchscreen [TUAW]