The benefits of having them on the screen is that the entire front or face of the phone can be almost all screen.
So, what is the benefit of such a move?
Quite simply, you will be able to have a larger screen without it necessarily being a larger phone. No longer will you need to have the addition of an inch or so for the hard keys. An inch doesn't sound like much, but you need to think of it in proportion to the size of the phone.
In reality, dropping that little inch means dropping what could be up to 20% of additional phone size if there were still hard keys.
There's a demand for larger screens, but also a demand that one can put their phone in their pocket. This is how both demands can be met.
Size matters and if the ladies say that's not true, they're saying it in order to not hurt someone's feelings.
Also the reality is this will in fact result in one less thing to break, as there are far more issues reported with the hard keys dying, than the screen completely failing.
This is why there's a bunch of apps out to mimic the hard keys as many people were SOL since the keys had failed and the warranty had expired.
walkin the walk while tappin the talk
danceswithbongs