Smartphone users just don’t know what they want. One of the biggest, loudest complaints about all-touchscreen phones like the iPhone is its lack of a hardware keyboard, and now a survey shows Pre users most want a soft keyboard.

The survey shows that users like the hardware keyboard but don’t like sliding it out every time they want to type something. Certain Android devices have both soft and hardware keyboards, but they’re very much in the minority. It’s an interesting problem for Palm, whose rumored next WebOS device, the Eos, features a fixed hardware keyboard but a much smaller screen. Still, Palm wouldn’t have too difficult a time updating the Pre’s firmware with a soft keyboard—after all, Android did it already.

Despite Palm having added the QWERTY keyboard in response to gripes about touch-only devices like the iPhone, many users want a software keyboard like Apple’s, as Palm’s design gives them no choice but to use the hardware solution. The opinion holds even for those who chose the Pre for the physical input.

Adapting the design might be difficult for Palm, which designed the Pre and webOS with the assumption that a physical keyboard would be present and free up space onscreen for more data. The Eos may partially address the problem by including a fixed physical keyboard, although it should shrink the touchscreen as a consequence.

Apple has long insisted on a virtual-only iPhone keyboard as it lets the company adapt to non-English languages with a single phone model and can be updated with new features without having to revamp the hardware at the same time. It also saves users from having to memorize two-key combinations for special characters.

Beyond the keyboard, Strategy Analytics has still encountered many who were “impressed” with other elements of the Pre, including the concept of using cards for real multitasking; it behaves “like a PC,” the researchers have been told. They also liked Synergy, the contact management platform that merges data from the phone, Facebook and Google and links it to the calendar and other apps.

More of this news at Electronista.

The Internet has been buzzing today about Palm’s second WebOS smart phone, the follow-up to the upcoming Palm Pre.

Palm’s working on something that’s lower-cost, and yes, it will have a QWERTY keyboard. There were a couple of names that popped up for the device like “Castle”, “Pixie” and “Centro 2” but what was reported to be the official name is EOS.

The new device is supposed to be a slim, lower-cost WebOS gadget, destined to come out within several months of the Pre. The problem with rumors like this is that people tend to take them too literally. Six months before launch, a lot of specs are subject to change. Unlike Apple, Palm is comfortable working on a range of bands and radio interfaces, and could swap a different radio in lickety-split if they get a good deal from a different carrier.

Calling the price is even more absurd. Negotiations over subsidies go on until even a few weeks before launch. I’ve seen prices tweaked even after I’ve gotten draft press releases. When predictions get this specific, they tend to involve a lot of wishful thinking – taking something that’s a proposal, a negotiation or a talking point, and casting it in stone. Without the slide-out keyboard of the Pre, the Eos looks similar to the BlackBerry Bold.  The pre-rebate pricing on the Eos seems high for now but if Palm can work with the telecom carrier to bring that down for consumers, it may have a worthy successor to its inexpensive and successful Centro smartphone.

What really matters here isn’t the specifics of the device. Those are subject to change – and they will change. What matters is that Palm has a broad, upcoming lineup of WebOS phones, and they’re already working on more than one. Palm promised that WebOS will be a platform and a lineup, and it looks like they’re going to live up to their promises.

This has implications for software developers, who can look at more than just the Pre when they think of markets for their software. And it’s got plenty of implications for users, who won’t have to worry about the Pre being an isolated event.

But let’s back off the hard-and-fast predictions. They’re likely to create as much unwarranted disappointment as joyous anticipation. This far in advance of launch, in the mobile industry, things almost always change.

Obtain further information about the Palm EOS? I strongly recommend that you go vivit Palm.com.