4. The method of claim 3 , wherein said selecting of the key intended by the user for the first keystroke is based on at least one criteria selected from a list consisting of: location of each of the hot spots for the grouping of keys with respect to the contact patch; and a probability based at least in part on a past history of the multiple keys of the grouping of keys and corresponding contact patches.
3. A method, comprising: determining an active point of a contact patch when a touchscreen of a handheld electronic device is touched by a user as a first keystroke, the active point being a point at which the touch of the user is determined to have been intended; determining the active point is near a hot spot for each of multiple keys on a virtual keyboard on the touchscreen, the hot spot for a key being a spot that the device considers to be a center of the key; selecting a particular key from among the multiple keys as a key intended by the user for the first keystroke; including a particular character represented by the particular key as a character in an ongoing stream of text input by the user; determining whether spelling and context considerations are finished for the first keystroke; if spelling and context considerations for the first keystroke are not finished, processing one or more additional keystrokes, and determining after each additional keystrokes whether spelling and context considerations are finished for the first keystroke; and upon determining that the spelling and context considerations for the first keystroke are finished, determining based on the spelling and context considerations for the first keystroke whether to change the selection of the particular key as the key intended by the user for the first keystroke.