No
question, since RIM's introduction of the BlackBerry, QWERTY keyboards became
quite popular, doesn't matter if these are slide-out keyboards like used with
the HTC TyTN and
TyTN II, or if
these are thumb-keyboards like used with the
Palm Treo 750 or
Samsung BlackJack
or if these are SureType-kind of keyboards like used with the
HTC Touch Dual
or the T-Mobile Juno.
All these keyboards have one common - a kind of classical typewriter keyboard
layout and it seems, the regular mobile phone keypad is slowly falling into
oblivion.
No question, the classic mobile phone keypad was kind of inconvenient to use
for entering texts but everything changed with the introduction of
T9
(predictive text) in the late 90's of the last century. No more need of
multi-tapping but with single taps, it was possible to enter texts on mobile
phones, similar to the QWERTY layout keyboards which also requires single-tap
only.
Now I'm using QWERTY keyboard Windows Mobile phones for roughly a year or so
and everything started with the Samsung
SGH-i320. When I
tried the O2 Xda
cosmo before, I didn't get used to it but when I got the i320 I thought I
should finally try it myself to get a better understanding how well QWERTY
keyboard for mobile phones works. Sure, I've used keyboards before with my
HTC Universal and
HTC Hermes but these
were Pocket PCs which I'm using for text entry anyway. So for some reasons it
was something different to use a keyboard on a Pocket PC smartphone than using
it with a mobile phone.
However, since I've really started to use thumb-keyboard smartphones, I don't
want to miss it anymore. And after the i320 I've upgraded to the
Samsung SGH-i600,
basically the same keyboard layout but now with UMTS/HSDPA. Until yesterday,
I've used the Palm
Treo 500v Windows Mobile Standard smartphone, again with a thumb-keyboard
and at the moment I'm trialing the
O2 Xda star with
this new SureType kind of keyboard, which is a modified QWERTY layout on a 4 row
5 column keypad, with a predictive input algorithm. While typing on a SureType
keyboard is different from typing on thumb-keyboard keyboards, it's way closer
to thumb-keyboards than to regular mobile phone keypads.
Anyway, since the first day I've used the Samsung i320 I cannot manage to
write longer texts with just one hand only, as I did before with standard mobile
phone keypads but basically I need both hands. I have a real problem to find
letters on the left side of the keyboard, if I'm using my right hand only. It's
interesting to see how the brain has structures and how QWERT, ASDFG and ZXCVB
are assigned to the left hand but not to the right hand.
As a matter of fact, I'm always using two hands if I write SMS or MMS messages
or reply to E-Mails. Sure, a short text just with two or three words, I can type
with my right hand only, but a full 160 character SMS is nearly impossible to
write with one hand only, if I use a QWERTY-layout keyboard.
Funny enough, I'm not alone. I've just spoken with colleagues and friends and
the faced the same problem. All of them are long time mobile phone users and
heavy messenger but not one of them said that they are using QWERTY-kind of
keyboards with one hand only but all of them confirmed that they are using two
hands as well.
As a bottom-line I think that, as much as the QWERTY keyboard improved the
overall messaging experience, as much it took away some convenience - for
instance being able to enter texts while walking or while standing in a subway,
where you better hold with one hand the handhold while typing with the other
hand.
So how about you, if you are using a QWERTY-kind of keyboard as well, do you
use it single-hand or do you need/use both hands as well?
Cheers ~ Arne
