Touch Vs Physical keyboard

V4NT0M

V4NT0M

V4NT0M

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I know a lot of you have iPhones and other touch only devices, it seems to be the way the market is moving. I'm looking at getting a newer sleeker android phone than my current G1 and am pondering whether I will miss the physical keyboard too much...

What are your experiences with touch keyboards especially on android, do you miss physical keyboards? Does the on-screen keyboard block out too much when you're typing?
 
I've gone from an N95 to an N97 and now I'm using a Desire.

To be honest, I do sometimes miss the physical QWERTY on the N97, I guess sometimes I like the feel of an actual button. It sounds strange, but its true :confused: Saying that though, the keyboard on the Desire is marvellous, and I really like the auto correct feature, and the word suggestions. I reckon I type as fast (if not faster) with the Desires virtual keyboard, than with any other phone.

I guess you could always try the Milestone, which has the best of both worlds.
 
I've tried iphones many times and I don't really like it, for browsing and typing messages on forums I think my N97 is far handier with it, but I could live with an on screen kb with a good touchscreen, I just prefer physical buttons.
 
I went from a c902 to an iphone and I've had no problems with the touch screen. I find that with texting, I can type fairly quick, make a few errors and still be faster than the c902 because I'm typing words rather than 'texting' if that makes sense. I wouldn't say it's better or worse, just different.
 
I've been trying it out on my G1 actually, probably not the best screen out there but it does actually work pretty well. The worst part about the android on screen keyboard is that it seems to take you away from what you're doing and just shows a text field and the keyboard, is there a way to change that on Android so you still see a portion of the screen?

The reason why I'm asking is that I want to move away from my G1, I do love the G1 form factor but it's creaky, has ageing hardware and is quite chunky. Wish there was a G1 that was slimmer and more sturdy.
 
my first touch only device was the touch diamond which both sucked and blew - it was a horribly laggy experience and that includes the keyboard. The screen was also too small. I have had a magic since launch and even with the stock keyboard it is a joy to use and so much better than any physical phone keyoard i have ever had. Add swype and the gap widens immensly.
 
I have the Desire with its on screen keyboard and the 9700 Blackberry Bold with a hardware keyboard and tbh i prefer the hardware keyboard of my 9700 BB...its a doddle to type out a long email or text now with minimum of mistakes ie spelling etc...in fact dont even use spell check as im pretty much perfect on the 9700.

The Desire with its touch screen keyboard is pretty good...its pretty fast and manages to keep up but i still keep making mistakes even with the spell chk and word correction options enabled...sometimes my finger hits the wrong button.

Personally i cant give up my 9700 with the keyboard...it just feels better when typing due to the tactile feedback. Whereas the Desire even with the haptic feedback just isnt the same.

For me its physical keyboard over the touch screen keyboard but i have to say the Desires keyboard is pretty impressive...reminds of the iphone with the responsiveness.
 
I've just moved from a G1 to a HTC Desire.

I LOVED the hardware keyboard. It made the phone much easier to use and I found myself using it more and more because I it done away with the handicap associated with using a mobile phone for web surfing, or long chat sessions.

I was very worried when moving over to the Desire, and part of me was sure I wouldn't like it. I am please to say I have been proven wrong. Once you have set up the touch keyboard, calibrated it and got used to the dictionary etc etc... its very usable and I dont feel too "held up" by it at all. Except I find myself paying extra attention on passwords.

I don't feel even the best touch keyboard will ever make up for a decent physical keybaord (...the G1 had it almost perfect I feel)

tl;dr
G1 keyboard= perfect
Desire keyboard = very good.
 
I find that a physical keyboard just feels better in use, I'm sure you can (and I have) got used to using touch keyboards but given the choice I'll take the one with a physical keyboard, it might be uglier but since I've never really attempted to get used to predictive text it makes more sense for me.
 
I couldn't get used to the touch keyboard on my 5800 after 6 months, so brought a N900, i'm now much happier. I found the iphone even worse than the 5800, not tried any of the android phone yet though.
 
vaultingSlinky said:
Then I got hold of the swype keyboard http://www.swypeinc.com/ and it is pretty revolutionary, I can text and walk, and my output is rather speedy. Makes texting almost enjoyable (I hated texting on my c902)
Click to expand...

I've had physical keyboards in the past & obviously they are the best

BUT


since I've installed SWYPE on my HD2 I'm a happy person, it just makes typing soo much easier :)
 
I had a XDA Mini S, HTC S710, SE Xperia X1 and a Touch Pro 2.

I was very worried about not having a physical keyboard on my HD2, but as stated above, after getting swype and using it for a month, I am perfectly happy with texting on my touchscreen. :)
 
I have hardware QWERTY on my X1 along with onscreen stylus and finger keyboards for the touchscreen and I'd be using the hardware keyboard all the time if I was using a phone with a capacitive screen, but being a resistive screen I can use the small onscreen keyboard with the stylus so for quick stuff I use that.

So basically I'd rather hardware keyboard with capacitive touchscreens but I'd rather a resistive touchscreen so I could use a small onscreen keyboard.
 
I'm using an E71 and loving the full QWERTY keyboard. I tried an LG Viewty back in the day and hated typing on a touchscreen - haptic feedback just isn't the same as hitting a key, and all the haptics in the world aren't going to let you actually feel the boundary between keys.

That being said, I reckon a decent T9 texter on a physical keypad will beat anyone else using anything else hands down in terms of speed.
 
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