I don't think anyone prefers the screen keyboard over a real one. I use my phone mainly for consuming information, any typing can wait until I get to a real keyboard. Even when I had a Blackberry, typing was only marginally more tolerable.
I like the idea of a physical phone keyboard but I have yet to find one that would allow me to switch language inputs quickly and customize the keyboard as deeply as I want to (taking into account various nonstandard characters)