Perhaps I am am just taken away by the idea of the Delta II keypad and I need someone to bring me back into the real world. Even if the future of this keypad is unclear, I do believe this may be just what some cellphone users have been waiting for.

What do you guys think of this keypad layout? Does it make sense or is it useless? Looking forward to your comments.

All a matter of size at the end of the day. What we have at the moment is not ideal for us keyboard hogs, and I struggle to text with a mobile. However sit down next to your average teenager these days and they can knock off messages without looking - essentially, touch type with mobiles. Just as they can often struggle with keyboards, you and I struggle with phones. An example of one generation of geeks getting as confused by new things as the non-techies were (and still are...) baffled by things that are everyday to you and I.

There are different products available that are far better than what this does.
First one is tiny projector, which projects normal sized keyboard to table and looks from your hand movements which button you "pressed". 2nd choice is a foldable qwerty keyboard, which fits in larger pockets, with more traditional feel, but still fitting larger pockets.

The "fastap" keypad design works pretty well for txt msging, imho. No need to change modes or have an algorithm guestimate whether I'm typing a letter or number either (dedicated buttons for each). Most commonly used punctuation is accessible with only 2 button presses and becomes second nature. Does take a couple of days to get used to the alphabetic layout. It has been available for over a year in a production phone:
http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=599

What I would like to see is a cell phone that is slim, runs windows mobile, has an easy to type touch type keyboard, a little longer than the Nokia communicators so it can be a real mobile powerhouse. I think all of the thumb devices are lame and if you want to do text input devices should be made with touch type keyboard. Versions of the old Psion 5mx would be great to copy as that clamshell pda's keyboard expanded when opened so the small 3.5" x 7.5" x .80" device had a keyboard most could type about 80% of full size keyboad speeds.