Sony attributed the reason behind the decision to the fact that the market prefers large touch screens over keyboards. Here’s what was said in full: “The market seems to prefer large touch screens to keyboards at the moment so unfortunately we don’t have any current plans to release an Xperia with a keyboard.”
The news doesn’t surprise at all. There has been a lack of physical QWERTY Android devices from all manufacturers. We wouldn’t expect Sony to build devices that are likely to only appeal to a small minority. Despite this, there is still a vocal minority who would like a QWERTY Android device of some kind and we’re sure this news will disappoint some.