We’re expanding our Verizon Wireless Motorola Droid coverage with a comparison of the usability of the on-screen and hardware keyboard against some present and past popular smartphone models. We’re pitting the Droid’s keyboard against the Verizon HTC Imagio, the Touch Pro2 slider, the tilt sliding AT&T Tilt, the iPhone 3GS, the Sprint HTC Hero, and the Sprint Samsung Moment.

The verdict: The on-screen keyboard with its auto-correction engine on Android 2.0 works very well and gives you more predictive correction options than the competing iPhone. It mimics the functionality of HTC devices, like the Imagio and the Android Hero. The hardware keyboard, although usable, is a bit cramped and keys were a bit more narrow than the original AT&T Tilt. We found that the island keys found on the Touch Pro2 (also known as the AT&T Tilt2) were better for typing than the membranous, contiguous keys on the Droid. However, the keyboard on the Droid, together with the directional pad found on the right of the keyboard occupies the same amount of space as the capacious Touch Pro2 keyboard.