I touched briefly on the benefits of a hardware keyboard the other day and right now, I wish that the BenQ S6 had a slide-out one.

I’m partial to sliders in general and not a big fan of the Slate form factor, but for my use at Knott’s Berry Farm today, the S6 MID is working out pretty well. I’ve been micro blogging on Twitter, reading email, and checking a few websites using my fingers to navigate the UI and the on-screen keyboard to input small amounts of data. It’s more tedious for me than a hardware keyboard would be, but the pace here is casual and laid back. There’s no sense of urgency here, possibly because I’m removed from the Windows environment that I associate with work, so I’m taking my time and just enjoying the day.

Still . . . when I need to find a place to sit down to set up the MID and a Bluetooth portable keyboard so that I can type something more than my fingers can tolerate on a virtual keyboard (like this post, for example), I can’t help but wish the BenQ had a hardware keyboard.

• Benq S6 overview video
• Benq S6 MID owner reveals all.
• Goodbye smartphone, hello BenQ S6 MID