Omnia's touchscreen keyboard - not a fan! |
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 Sep 10 2008, 13:45
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#1
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Newbie  Group: Posters Posts: 16 Joined: 17th October 2006 Member No.: 210,513 Device(s): Vario II  |
Right so after that lengthy post about the Omnia vs. Touch Pro last month finally got my hands on an Omnia in the local shop. Like I said in the post, was leaning heavily towards the Omnia but touchscreen keyboard had to be a good'un.
What a disappointment using the Omnia's touchscreen keyboard was! Now I knew all along that coming to this from the hardware keyboard on my Vario 2 was always going to be a big step and take some time getting used to but first impressions couldn't have been any worse. First off I used the full QWERTY keyboard mode in landscape as this is how I want to type messages. I always thought with the amount of screen real estate on the Omnia accuracy wouldn't be much of a problem for my fairly normalish size fingers. But even after typing out several practice lines I was still constantly making the occasional but annoying typo. And I'm someone who has always been comfortable using touch screens (never used my stylus on the Vario 2). Most of all, it quickly became tiresome having to focus so much of my attention on where exactly each letter key was when I just wanted to get the message written. I reckon even after getting used to typing on the Omnia I would still be able to type over twice as fast on a hardware keyboard, with quite a few less typos along the way to boot. Another annoyance was something I expected to be a positive - the haptic feedback. While it is great when using the dialer and other applications, the constant buzzing on your fingers becomes rather irritating when typing out messages and didn't help at all with giving a greater sense of input accuracy, as it doesn't quite seem to sync with your typing 100% of the time. I assume it can be disabled but I had expected it to be a very helpful feature when it came to text input, which it wasn't for me. A final disappointment for me was the dimensions of the phone. Perhaps it just takes a little period of adjustment but the phone genuinely felt too oblong for me in my quick test. My hands are longer than average so you'd think this wouldn't be a problem but it just didn't feel quite right and I would have been happy with a slightly shorter length on the device for nimbler onscreen navigation. So am I being too quick to judge? I see that others have experienced similar teething problems when moving from hardware keyboards to the Omnia's touchscreen, only to get used to it over time. But after this first run in with it I'm not so sure I would fall in that camp. Which is very annoying as I was really ready to give this phone some love! This post has been edited by freshmaker: Sep 10 2008, 13:50 |
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Sep 10 2008, 13:47
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#2
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 The Main Man  Group: Admin Team Posts: 20,982 Joined: 6th November 2002 From: Norwich, UK Member No.: 1 Device(s): HTC Advantage |
The QWERTY isn't great, BUT... the 20 key is awesome (IMHO!)
I think you might be being a little hasty... P -------------------- Paul O'Brien - Microsoft MVP, Mobile Devices, MoDaCo.network Founder. Check out my Blog! £10 off a £20 spend at eXpansys - click for details |
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Sep 10 2008, 14:21
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#3
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Regular  Group: Posters Posts: 109 Joined: 10th September 2008 Member No.: 424,939 Device(s): Samsung i900 Omnia |
QUOTE(Paul (MVP) @ Sep 10 2008, 13:47)  The QWERTY isn't great, BUT... the 20 key is awesome (IMHO!) I think you might be being a little hasty... P I agree. This is my first touch screen device as I was always sceptical about the keypad. I struggled for a few days with the qwerty keyboard and got to a point where I could just about type a text message without wanting to hurl the thing at the wall. Then I decided to have a play with the other input modes and found that the phonepad option is as easy to use as my N95. Now I can text like a demon again  |
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Sep 10 2008, 14:32
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#4
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Newbie Group: Posters Posts: 16 Joined: 17th October 2006 Member No.: 210,513 Device(s): Vario II |
QUOTE(Paul (MVP) @ Sep 10 2008, 14:47) The QWERTY isn't great, BUT... the 20 key is awesome (IMHO!) I think you might be being a little hasty... P Newbie question no doubt but what is the 20 key input? |
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Sep 10 2008, 14:35
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#5
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The Main Man Group: Admin Team Posts: 20,982 Joined: 6th November 2002 From: Norwich, UK Member No.: 1 Device(s): HTC Advantage |
QWERTY style with 2 letters per key predictive style...
As seen in hardware forum on those blackberries and the HTC shadow... P -------------------- Paul O'Brien - Microsoft MVP, Mobile Devices, MoDaCo.network Founder. Check out my Blog! £10 off a £20 spend at eXpansys - click for details |
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Sep 10 2008, 14:40
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#6
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Newbie Group: Posters Posts: 16 Joined: 17th October 2006 Member No.: 210,513 Device(s): Vario II |
QUOTE(Paul (MVP) @ Sep 10 2008, 15:35) QWERTY style with 2 letters per key predictive style... As seen in hardware forum on those blackberries and the HTC shadow... P Ah I see. Will pop back in the shop and give that a go. Will probably have to play it safe and order over the phone from T-Mob, even though it's currently out of stock, so I get the option to return after 7 days. Silly that you don't get this option when you buy one in the shop, who do have it in stock now. |
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Sep 10 2008, 15:15
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#7
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Newbie Group: Posters Posts: 16 Joined: 17th October 2006 Member No.: 210,513 Device(s): Vario II |
By the by, does this 20 key input system come in-built with the Omnia or is it an add-on piece of kit?
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Sep 10 2008, 15:17
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#8
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The Main Man Group: Admin Team Posts: 20,982 Joined: 6th November 2002 From: Norwich, UK Member No.: 1 Device(s): HTC Advantage |
Built in...
P -------------------- Paul O'Brien - Microsoft MVP, Mobile Devices, MoDaCo.network Founder. Check out my Blog! £10 off a £20 spend at eXpansys - click for details |
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Sep 10 2008, 15:43
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#9
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Regular Group: Posters Posts: 93 Joined: 5th September 2008 Member No.: 423,242 Device(s): Samsung Omnia i900 |
QUOTE(freshmaker @ Sep 10 2008, 15:40) Ah I see. Will pop back in the shop and give that a go. Will probably have to play it safe and order over the phone from T-Mob, even though it's currently out of stock, so I get the option to return after 7 days. Silly that you don't get this option when you buy one in the shop, who do have it in stock now. My typing ability improved massively when I updated to HH1 so don't necessarily be put off by a phone in a shop as it's likely to be running older firmware. Also - i strongly recommend installing SPB Mobile Shell which makes it much more finger happy when going through menu's etc. |
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Sep 10 2008, 16:37
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#10
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Newbie Group: Posters Posts: 18 Joined: 30th August 2008 Member No.: 421,377 Device(s): Samsung Omnia |
seriously..i gave up on the samsung qwerty keyboard..using the htc diamond keyboard. you will be surprise it takes lesser effort and lesser typo mistakes even though the keys are smaller
Loved almost everything on the Omnia over TytnII except of the physical KB and the stupid "external" stylus |
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Sep 11 2008, 07:37
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#11
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Newbie Group: Posters Posts: 26 Joined: 4th January 2004 Member No.: 27,181 |
I'm also not a fan of the text input on the Omnia. I've found that it's worst when using Opera as the actual text input is really laggy.
My biggest gripe is that the button for scrolling down the list of suggestes words (using xt9) doesn't seem to respond to screen taps so I have to use the mouse pointer instead. |
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Sep 11 2008, 07:49
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#12
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Newbie Group: Posters Posts: 39 Joined: 2nd September 2008 From: Pattaya Member No.: 422,281 Device(s): Omnia i900 |
Guys, are there any alternative Keyboard (Iphone like) which work not only in Portrait but also in Landscape mode? I could not find one yet. The most nice keyboard are only for QVGA or VGA, like PocketCM etc.
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Sep 11 2008, 14:46
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#13
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Newbie Group: Posters Posts: 12 Joined: 9th September 2008 Member No.: 424,601 |
In my experience, the keyboard was crap until I switched over to DXHH3 rom, then everything was perfect. It puts my Iphone keyboard to shame now.
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Sep 11 2008, 15:16
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#14
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Regular Group: Posters Posts: 93 Joined: 5th September 2008 Member No.: 423,242 Device(s): Samsung Omnia i900 |
Grrrr, i so want to give HH3 a go but after reading the bricking thread ..........
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Sep 11 2008, 15:52
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#15
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Newbie Group: Posters Posts: 27 Joined: 26th August 2008 Member No.: 420,326 Device(s): i900 |
QUOTE(Unisoldrew @ Sep 11 2008, 16:16) Grrrr, i so want to give HH3 a go but after reading the bricking thread .......... I flashed to HH3 with no problems using the "official" exe |
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Sep 12 2008, 09:47
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#16
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Newbie Group: Posters Posts: 26 Joined: 4th January 2004 Member No.: 27,181 |
I need to find the courage to flash my i900V to HH3 then, cos the text entry is really starting to annoy me. I've put SPB Mobile Shell on and now loving everything else. Just that damn text entry.
I'll study the other threads and give HH3 a go this weekend. |
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