Smartphone T9 = Welcome to Yesterday!

[Guest Myke]

I love this phone, but one thing that bugs me is the T9. My last phone was the sonyericsson t68i which had great t9 features.. This is one of the most important features of a phone aside from its basic call functions.

Here's a wishlist of T9 features me and fellow board members have put together:

:!: When you are choosing a replacement word, the replacements should line up in a pop up menu so you can scroll through them easily and not so easily skip a word and have to blindly scroll back to it. (t68i feature)

:!: it doesnt recognize my name despite having put it in the owner information?.. not very signifigant, i figured id mention it

:!: you cant make a word captical after you type it. with the t68i, you could type the word "dog", click caps once: "Dog", click it again "DOG", and do this all after you typed the word, since you usually remember these things after you type it and see it there.

:!: if you enter a word using t9, once it gets to a point where it doesnt recognize the word youre entering, a little insert word box should appear which allows you to insert your custom word not using t9, and after you add it, it adds it to the dictionary for you automatically. (t68i feature)

:!: after you write a word with T9 and you move on, if you want to change it, you should be able to hit Left Arrow once to get to the word, left again underlines it to let you choose a different t9 word. (almost every phone)

:!: it needs to be easier to add your own words when using T9. holding in the * untill it finally gets to the "abc" is annoying, and then holding it in again till it gets back to t9. :? You should be able to click Menu, and then choose an option "Insert Custom Word", a window pops up that lets you type your word in, you click done, it adds your word and it says added to dictionary, and youre set! (t68i feature)

:!: The ability to hold down a letter in t9 to quickly insert a number. If you hold down a letter now, you get worthless words like cabba and feedededed.. Any why cant we insert spaces in 123 mode? (most ever phone)

:!: a SMS character count. How close are we to the 160 character limit? I've no clue

This is all I can think of now. These are all essential t9 features, and they NEED to be included in future updates... Entering text is easily one of the most important things you can do on this phone, why does the technology seem to be going backwards?

[Guest jrdwthomas]

My dear friend. It sounds to me as if you haven't read your instruction manual properly. However there are a few things orange missed out!

Firstly if you hold down the # key a list of special characters appears you simply select the one you want.

As for turning the T9 off all you need to do is hold down the * button. Keep doing that and you'll be able to cycle through T9 predictive text, manual text and just numerical. If you press the * button instead of holding it down you can select caps on or off also.

As for adding words to your dictionary. If you enter the word in manual text mode it automatically remembers it from that moment onwards.

Hope this helps

All the best

[Guest Myke]

Thanks for those tips! I've updated my list of needs/wants to conform with what youve told me.

[Guest pete1312]

I didn't see Myke's original list, but his updated one sounds like a reasonable request to me!

[Guest HelloDave]

Bear in mind that the "Nokia way" of using T9 (or at least all the Nokias i've used) is very different to the T68's implementation. Nokias don't have a popup scrolling list of alternative words (though you can get to them via a menu) they don't pop up an insert box for an unrecognized word (again it is a menu option) but work more like the SPV does (or at least, how it's supposed to) by automatically adding words, and they don't have a post capitalization option - once you've entered a word that's it! One thing that Nokias do that the SPV could benefit from is remember the T9 for a word once you've entered it, so if you get the wrong word and press space a Nokia will allow you to go back and press the "word cycle" button again to change that word to another possibility, which the SPV doesn't do - once you've entered a word it just becomes characters, which is very annoying sometimes!

Each system has its merits but it generallly comes down to what you're used to; no particular system is "better". Like it or not, probably more people will have used Nokia T9 than anything else, so that is probably the implementation M$ will lean more towards than any other, though if that's the case why they swapped the functions of 0 and # is beyond me... That is of course unless Nokia have "copyrighted" key functions? If Amazon can do it for a click (one click ordering) and seeing that BT were serious about patenting the hyperlink then anything is possible!

[Guest pete1312]

I'm personally well familiar with the Nokia method, which I have found very "user friendly" for many years.

I'm now getting accustomed to the SPV and (apart from the small keys) starting to get the hang of it.

Yes, it needs improving - especially its loss of new words after a re-boot (or is that an Off/On?) , which (hopefully) has been cured after the UK Update.

(I have no idea at time of writing if that particular nagging bug has been fixed or not)!

[Guest Myke]

i heard that bug was worked out, i sure hope so, thats a horrible bug!

[Guest Jedra]

Nope - the phone still 'forgets' added words when you re-cycle it. However, since the update my phone hasn't crashed so I guess it won't matter so much!

[Guest mjc1975]

On the plus side....

The T9 on the SPV now recognises swear words which my Samsung A300 never did!!!!

[Guest tom]

My last phone, the sony J7e, also used 0 as space and # to cycle.

This really put me out for a few days when I got the SPV.

[Guest neilfenstein]

Me too!

But being able to use t9 in other functins is a cool feature we have!

My problem is each upgrade phone change for me has meant different manufacturers so getting used to SPV was just same. However far worse to text before update, they have definately improved the speed with this.

:)

[Guest Myke]

i added two new items to the wishlist:

:!: after you write a word with T9 and you move on, if you want to change it, you should be able to hit Left Arrow once to get to the word, left again underlines it to let you choose a different t9 word. (t68i feature)

:!: it needs to be easier to add your own words when using T9. holding in the * untill it finally gets to the "abc" is annoying, and then holding it in again till it gets back to t9. :? You should be able to click Menu, and then choose an option "Insert Custom Word", a window pops up that lets you type your word in, you click done, it adds your word and it says added to dictionary, and youre set! (t68i feature)

[Guest imt21]

I miss being able to hold a key down whilst in t9 mode to quickly insert the number rather than the letter as with the Nokia implementation.

(Rather than having to switch to 123 mode, insert the number, then switch back to t9).

And why can't you insert spaces whilst in 123 mode?

[Guest]

Another really annoying "feature" is when you move the cursor up to edit text you have already typed. Rather than just moving up, it also moves to the start of the line. I really hope that this is sorted out in the next patch.....

[Guest Chris b.a.r.f.]

:!:  after you write a word with T9 and you move on, if you want to change it, you should be able to hit Left Arrow once to get to the word, left again underlines it to let you choose a different t9 word.  (t68i feature)

Yes! A constant irritation that the SPV doesn't have this feature. You write T68i feature, but it's also been a feature of every other T9-enabled phone I've ever owned - current SPV excepted, of course.

[Guest Myke]

thanks for your comments! I've added them to the list. hopefully someone will see this list and take notice. :wink:

if anyone has something to add, feel free to write it

[Guest kingbing]

You can easily add a number by cycling with the 0 key. To add a number to the end of a word, type the word, press right to remove the t9 underline thing, and press the number key, and cycle again with the number

[Guest Myke]

yeah this works to write a number, but it doesnt work so smoothly for writing multiple numbers. for example, to write 123, youd have to type 1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,#,Backspace,2,0,0,0,#,Backspace,3,0,0,0. It just seems to make more sense to simply hold down 1,2,3 for about a second each. I mean imagine if you had to type out a full phone number that way!

[Guest HelloDave]

But if you're holding down each number key for >1 sec then why not just change to number input mode and be done with it? :)

Personally I don't think the SPV's T9 is that bad, though not being able to cycle through words after you've entered them is a pain! The T9 on the T68i actually really p***ed me off when I used it (sorry Myke - I know you'd marry you're T68's T9 if you could :wink:) becuase the "enter word" box kept popping up while I was typing, so I couldn't see what I'd already written and tended to loose my "flow". It's probably becuase I'm used to Nokia's though, which the SPV's T9 is more similar to.

[Guest Syvwlch]

I used to use it on a Sagem, and it was purdy much like it is on the SPV. Prolly explains why I also rather like it, to be honest.

[Guest Myke]

t68i t9 isnt something youre gonna pick up and love, but once you get past the learning curve, everything else seems drastically inferior. but I would have to agree, SPV t9 isnt that bad... but it could be improved :)

[Guest elizamft]

Nokia phones are still the most SMS-friendly phones. But it doesn't mean i don't love my tanager.

[Guest Jandy]

Thought this "wish list" could be brought back to prominence.

I have an addition: :!: Words added to the T9 dictionary should be removable. It's quite annoying having the phone automatically add random things like 6F when you meant to put ME, and having to scroll through all the alternatives. Some form of editable T9 dictionary would be great! But probably impossible!?

[Guest fozzie]

Some form of editable T9 dictionary would be great!  But probably impossible!?

>>Nope:)

[Guest Jandy]

thanks! :)