http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/4134/screenshot0431.png

Feel free to post your own results! Take the test at http://www.iphonetypingtest.com

http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/4134/screenshot0431.png

Feel free to post your own results! Take the test at http://www.iphonetypingtest.com

Has anyone come across one?

Thanks :-)

Has anyone come across one?

Thanks :-)

My next phone was an analog StarTAC. It couldn’t do SMS, but at least it had voice coverage in most places I went (and great sound quality to boot, better than any phone i’ve had since). My next phone was a digital StarTAC or TimePort with an ahead-of-its-time color OLED display back when everything else was monochrome LCD. It could display four lines of text, but still didn’t allow for texting until a firmware update that arrived a year after I bought it (2001 or thereabouts). I rushed to the Verizon Wireless store to get the upgrade, figuring I might use it every few weeks or so. Then I became a texting addict. It wasn’t long before I started sending or receiving 100+ texts a week – sometimes a day.

Like seemingly everyone else, I bought a Moto Razr back when they were still the height of phone fashion. It turned out to be an awful phone for texting – the keys are small and poorly distinguished. I swore my next phone would have QWERTY.

I really want an iPhone, but have half a year to go on my VZW contract, so I decided to buy time by buying a used Samsung SCH-u740 (since renamed Alias), which I can switch to until my Verizon contract ends and i can change over to AT&T for the iPhone. The irony is that by the time I bought a QWERTY phone, I had become a whizbang T9er.

There are good and bad QWERTY implementations out there. Most of them are bad. A proper QWERTY keyboard has five rows of keys, but most phones have only four or three rows, and that’s where the problems start. The slight offset between the rows is missing from most phone keypads as well, which further complicates typing on them.

My Samsung does have four rows of keys – no top row with numbers, so some of the letters do double duty as number keys. Hold them down for awhile and the number appears. Some of the common symbols, like parentheses, don’t have their own key even when shifted. But at least the space bar is in its proper place, below the letters. Some phones, like the LG enV2, do have dedicated number keys, but no lower row for the space bar, so instead there are two small “space” keys where the shift keys normally are. The worst QWERTY keyboards are those with only three rows of keys – often sliders like the LG Rumor and Samsung Glyde – which not only ditch the top row of numbers and symbols, but often put the space bar in the center of the lower row of letter keys, pushing the B, N, and M keys way over to the right to make room for the space key. So the M is directly below the L. This totally messes with me.

Then there’s the Palm Centro, which would be great if i could first shrink my fingertips to half their size (and if Palm would update their OS this decade). I’m bugged that the iPhone touchpad keys don’t usually work in landscape mode, but at least its auto-correcting-as-you-type works well.

I still like the enV2 setup – it’s the best of both worlds – huge outer keypad for dialing and T9, and a great QWERTY keyboard inside, all in a small, lightweight package. I just wish the phone was better.

My next phone was an analog StarTAC. It couldn’t do SMS, but at least it had voice coverage in most places I went (and great sound quality to boot, better than any phone i’ve had since). My next phone was a digital StarTAC or TimePort with an ahead-of-its-time color OLED display back when everything else was monochrome LCD. It could display four lines of text, but still didn’t allow for texting until a firmware update that arrived a year after I bought it (2001 or thereabouts). I rushed to the Verizon Wireless store to get the upgrade, figuring I might use it every few weeks or so. Then I became a texting addict. It wasn’t long before I started sending or receiving 100+ texts a week – sometimes a day.

Like seemingly everyone else, I bought a Moto Razr back when they were still the height of phone fashion. It turned out to be an awful phone for texting – the keys are small and poorly distinguished. I swore my next phone would have QWERTY.

I really want an iPhone, but have half a year to go on my VZW contract, so I decided to buy time by buying a used Samsung SCH-u740 (since renamed Alias), which I can switch to until my Verizon contract ends and i can change over to AT&T for the iPhone. The irony is that by the time I bought a QWERTY phone, I had become a whizbang T9er.

There are good and bad QWERTY implementations out there. Most of them are bad. A proper QWERTY keyboard has five rows of keys, but most phones have only four or three rows, and that’s where the problems start. The slight offset between the rows is missing from most phone keypads as well, which further complicates typing on them.

My Samsung does have four rows of keys – no top row with numbers, so some of the letters do double duty as number keys. Hold them down for awhile and the number appears. Some of the common symbols, like parentheses, don’t have their own key even when shifted. But at least the space bar is in its proper place, below the letters. Some phones, like the LG enV2, do have dedicated number keys, but no lower row for the space bar, so instead there are two small “space” keys where the shift keys normally are. The worst QWERTY keyboards are those with only three rows of keys – often sliders like the LG Rumor and Samsung Glyde – which not only ditch the top row of numbers and symbols, but often put the space bar in the center of the lower row of letter keys, pushing the B, N, and M keys way over to the right to make room for the space key. So the M is directly below the L. This totally messes with me.

Then there’s the Palm Centro, which would be great if i could first shrink my fingertips to half their size (and if Palm would update their OS this decade). I’m bugged that the iPhone touchpad keys don’t usually work in landscape mode, but at least its auto-correcting-as-you-type works well.

I still like the enV2 setup – it’s the best of both worlds – huge outer keypad for dialing and T9, and a great QWERTY keyboard inside, all in a small, lightweight package. I just wish the phone was better.