Is it an actual defect or not? A lot of people seem to have this problem, while others claim that their phones don't have it. I'm still in my 30 day trial of Sprint, and I just want to get a defect-free phone. Please help.

I think most or all are like this... The people who are saying they don't have this problem may have recently pressed those keys and therefore pushed it back down (it takes a little while for it to pop back up). This does not seem to be causing any problems and as long as you have the $7/mo protection plan even if the keyboard does come up you can just swap it out later....

Mine has been like this since I got my phone over a month ago and has not gotten any worse...

Hope what you said is true. But I do see a few nice pictures in which the keys are not extruding. I wonder if this has anything to do with manufacturing batch or date. Is there a way to tell the phone's production date? My previous Moto E815 had some issue with a loose hinge which was common for early batch and I got a replacement which was slightly more recent and everything was fine.

I don't have that problem as far as I can tell - but the Windows key on the front of the phone has almost stopped working and I've only had the phone for 2 months.

Yes, I have this problem too. I thought I was the only one. It doesn't bother me but I hope it doesn't develop into a bigger problem down the road.

My P4000 is the sameway - Just slightly though

Is there a way to identify the production batch number or date for HTC phones? I checked the info of my phone after removing the battery but it seems that there's no such info for production date. It's really hard to believe that the keyboard is made that way, I just can't find a possible reason for that. To me it's more like a model problem, so the same physical defect occurs in the same batch.

Maybe I'm a lil paronoid but I'm trying to get a phone that is "perfect" funtional and physical.

Welcome to the real world... you may get a phone that is 100% functional. As far as manufacturing goes... if your phone works, you can't do crap about it. I have two Moguls and both of them have this issue. I don't even see a problem with it. It's not like the keys pop off when you open the phone, it's more like a small gap that appears and you can barely fit a piece of hair in it... My god, these things are made by humans to some extent, therefore, they aren't going to be perfect. what do you people expect? All I can say is get insurance on your phone and use it till it's not functional and then get another one. Don't worry about a little hairline gap in the keys.

I had the keyboard issue on my first Mogul, but it did not cause any problems. I had to get an insurance exchange as it had some other issues and my replacement did not have a lifted keyboard. It's really wasn't that big of a deal with the first one.

This is definitely a defect, not a feature. It's like there isn't enough adhesive in that spot to keep the keys down, and like others said if you push them down firmly they will stay that way for a little while until they peel up again. It hasn't really been a problem for me aside from the Tab key getting worn from sliding the phone open and closed.