Blind-typing an SMS on a Nokia 3310 was so fast... or at least that was the feeling.
I still regularly miss those keyboards, in particular when I hesitate between swiping a word or typing it, guessing how autocorrect will fail if I don't type... This never happened with my 3310, and there was no need for it at all.
I bet it just felt fast (there are lots of repeated key-hits, right?). I remember around that time (maybe a little later) I had a slide-out keyboard Samsung of some sort. I got a reputation for writing long texts, haha.
I liked T9 but one of those Samsung phones you’re talking about were the last phone I had before I bought my first smartphone. Of course the one I had still had a keypad on the front so I could still type using T9 without looking.