I have always had a keyboard, or a qwerty keyboard, and at the end of '10 I fell for the htc desire z.. it was perfect, par being a bit heavy, big (it has a physical keyboard though) and not great battery life.
I've seen the desire's battery life is better, but no keyboard and i dont know if i could get used to a touchscreen :S also on the desire the camera takes 3 seconds to take a photo, i dunno if this is the same on the desire z. the desire z's cheaper but do you think it would be better for me?

in short: which is better for me, a phone more recent, cheaper, with a physical keyboard that i may not need and makes he phone bulky, or an older, award-winning, popular, thinner and non-keyboard phone?

Hi.I suggest just looking up reviews on both the phones.Then seeing which phone is the better phone to go with there. It also helps too if you can go into your local service provider store & play with the phones on display. See which phone you like better in all.