I'm probably pretty far out on the normal mobile user curve: my phone is primarily used for phone calls along with some texting and I don't even have a data plan.
I would suspect many mobile users would be faster than me (I know people who can go astonishingly fast), although I can (or at least used to be able to) type much faster on the BB keyboard than my phone screen. I am a decent typist though, so for most communication over a sentence I will resort to email using a desktop or laptop. I hate typing on laptop keyboards though and use an external one. I'm also not a fan of a bunch of back and forth texting, so for conversations like that it's usually better resolved with a call.
I used a Blackberry Classic up until last year when my provider dropped 3G coverage. It's probably a good thing as I never got phone addiction since the browser was unusable and didn't have the apps. I did get in the habit of carrying an iPad with me though for that: but at least then you only pull it out when necessary. I might have to check out the Zinwa retrofit kits mentioned in the article: I do miss the hardware keyboard when using the Android I replaced it with.
The Pinephone with the keyboard accessory was tempting too, but the software readiness (and older hardware) didn't seem practical as a daily driver.
$10K seems like a generous donation to me: good on them for making one.
You can’t complain about the amount because you don't know what other donations they make. I would rather see $10K donations made to a bunch of different projects than a single big donation to one project. That way if one company has a bad year (or goes out of business) projects are not left scrambling to replace their sponsor. As the saying goes, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”.