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Blackberry Storm's On Screen Keyboard

Last post 11-24-2008 6:42 AM by Dave Parker MVP. 3 replies.
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  • 11-21-2008 2:22 PM

    • Laura Rooke
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    • 3_expert
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    Blackberry Storm's On Screen Keyboard

    I was watching my local news this morning and they were showing the new Blackberry Storm. The presenter demonstrated the touch keyboard. You have to press a letter and when the correct letter lights up, you press it again to confirm. She was asked how this worked for her. She said, not suprisingly 'Not too well'. I cannot believe that every letter you enter needs two presses on the keyboard - is this correct?

    Laura Rooke
    MVP - Mobile Devices
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    • Post Points: 10
  • 11-21-2008 3:00 PM In reply to

    • Bill Fisher
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    • 2_advocate
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    Re: Blackberry Storm's On Screen Keyboard

    That's nearly it. Engadget's review of the Storm was also fairly unkind toward the keyboard. They wrote that you need to "hover" your finger over the correct letter, and then press down to actually type the letter. Engadget thought that it really hindered the ability to type quick emails and texts.

    Here's their take:

    "The slant from RIM's PR on the Storm is that the new clickable touchscreen delivers another high caliber typist's dream to their roster -- but that couldn't be further from the truth. Rather than the click making things easier, it actually makes them more difficult. As you press down to engage a "key," you're required to release before moving to another, which means that you can only type so quickly. In our tests, we were constantly frustrated by the staggering, laggy movement when trying to type with any speed. You have to let the click depress before you can strike another character, and that makes for a stuttery input process. Additionally, hovering over characters is represented by a blue glow, which looks nice when moving around, but in practice doesn't do a very good job of letting you know what key you're touching. We had spelling errors aplenty. All of this would be helped greatly by an intelligent software component that guessed what you meant to type -- much like the iPhone's predictive element. Unfortunately, what RIM provides is more of a glorified T9, which means if you type "fo," it doesn't know you meant to type "do." Ultimately we found ourselves slowly and carefully pecking out messages that should have taken less time to put together, clicking screen or not."

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  • 11-21-2008 11:37 PM In reply to

    • Laura Rooke
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    • Joined on 03-27-2008
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    • 3_expert
      Microsoft Windows Mobile MVP
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    Re: Blackberry Storm's On Screen Keyboard

    Phonescoop has a video on YouTube including typing on the keyboard which doesn't look as bad as I imagined.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IRVs4hXDIU

     

    Laura Rooke
    MVP - Mobile Devices
    My Devices..........
    IPAQ 3650
    IPAQ 5450
    IPAQ 4700
    IPAQ 2795
    Jasjar
    Motorola Q
    T-Mobile Dash
    AT&T TILT
    • Post Points: 10
  • 11-24-2008 6:42 AM In reply to

    Re: Blackberry Storm's On Screen Keyboard

    It sounds awful, but as you say it doesn't look that bad in the video.

    Dave Parker
    Microsoft M.V.P. Mobile Devices
    Reviewer & Moderator - www.4Winmobile.com
    • Post Points: 5
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