Who likes typing on the Droid X?

by philg

I played around recently with the Droid X phone. It seemed like a great device, but I can’t get used to the on-screen keyboard. I find it unnerving to watch characters pop up as I type. I greatly prefer the physical keyboard of a Blackberry or my now-ancient Android G1 phone. Anyone having good luck with the Droid X care to explain the secret of typing on the device? Are there rumors of a similar phone with a slide-out keyboard?

15 thoughts on “Who likes typing on the Droid X?”

  1. I switched from a physical keyboard (G1) to the on-screen keyboard of the nexus one a while back. I was assimilated after a few weeks, though I still find it much quicker to type on a blackberry than on the touch screen. Also, I find that holding the phone horizontally and typing with thumbs accelerates typing. As an alternative approach, try out swype (swypeinc.com) for another form of keyboard input. You can swap between the android keyboard and alternate forms of input by pressing and holding on any keyboard input area.

  3. I don’t use android phones, but I can say that there is a bit of a learning curve with touch screen keyboards.

    The iPhone keyboard (still widely regarded as the best touch keyboard implementation) does take a few days of use to become familiar with “touch” typing. (pun intended)

    After using the iPhone keyboard for several days, I was able to type as fast or faster than a BlackBerry with physical keys and I would suspect the same from the Droid X.

    From a Mossberg article on the first iPhonein 2007:

    “The iPhone’s most controversial feature, the omission of a physical keyboard in favor of a virtual keyboard on the screen, turned out in our tests to be a nonissue, despite our deep initial skepticism. After five days of use, Walt — who did most of the testing for this review — was able to type on it as quickly and accurately as he could on the Palm Treo he has used for years. This was partly because of smart software that corrects typing errors on the fly.”

  4. Typing on touchscreens is pretty hopeless. I am surprised that Apple, Google, etc have been able to market it to well. Proof that people will buy anything if made “cool” enough.

    But on that note, have you tried Swype? It’s on most Motorola phones, so it should be on the Droid X (long-tap the text-entry field to be able select different software keyboards). To enter words, you “swipe” across each of the letters making up the word. You don’t need to make your movement accurate, nor are you completely reliant on the phone correcting—just getting your finger in the general area of characters, and Swype is able to figure words out.

    Of course, while Swype works well for natural language entry, it still doesn’t work for entry non-natural language things, such as commands into SSH. I’ve a T-Mobile G1 (HTC Dream) with a keyboard now, and my next phone will have a keyboard too.

  5. I like swype in portrait orientation. If I’m doing passwords or email addresses, i’ll turn to landscape and slow down with the non-swype keyboard. It’s bigger for my fat fingers.

    But I’ve been using the voice recognition alot and liking it.

  6. Have you tried iPhone typing, and if so, how does it compare? Typing without tactile feedback is definitely a second-class experience, but the iPhone makes the best of it with a predictive algorithm that increases the virtual size of keys that are likely to follow whatever you’ve got typed at the moment. Not going to be helpful when typing out tail numbers and the like, but it helps quite a bit for normal prose.

  7. Jeffrey: I have tried typing on an iPhone a few times. The Android X seemed better than the iPhone, maybe because the screen is physically larger. When a primary purpose of a device is typing, I would say that there is no substitute for a physical keyboard (relatively proven technology!).

  8. I disagree about physical keyboards being definitively superior in a small form factor.

    It’s definitely a matter of personal preference, but it’s definitely possible to be faster and more accurate with a touchscreen keyboard than a physical one. I’ve become much faster and more accurate on the iPhone keyboard than I am on a blackberry (7 years of blackberry use, 3 years of iPhone use). Obviously one anecdotal data point, but it’s definitely not possible to say that one is better than another.

    On the flip side, once you get bigger, obviously physical keyboards start to show more definitive advantages. While I can approach my touch-typing speeds on the iPad, it’s a less pleasurable experience to do so than a physical keyboard.

  11. Similar phone with a slide-out keyboard? Try the older Droid. I’ve been using one since January; it’s marvelous.

  12. The new iPhone 4 has Voice Control. Press and hold the Home button, then just speak.

    Here’s what happened when I tried it:

    Me: “Play Fats Waller”
    Phone: “Playing Sonata for Flute and Piano”
    Me: “Play Fats Waller”
    Phone: “Playing Sonata for Flute and Piano”
    Me: “Play! … Fats! … Waller!”
    Phone: “Calling Cath Moore”

    Me: “Play St. Louis Blues”
    Phone: “Playing Playlist Purchase” [plays Sonata for Flute and Piano again]

  13. The trick is to pretend you’re typing on air, as in your fingers are as light as feathers. Otherwise you’re fighting the flat, uncomfortable screen

  14. Philip: Try the droid incredible (also at verizon) to see if it works any better for you. I tried both yesterday and found that I like both the form factor and the onscreen keyboard on the droid incredible much better. Of course YMMV.

  15. I’m new to smartphones, just getting a Droid X last week. I find the typing so-so: acceptable for a quick e-mail, but awkward enough that I’ve ordered a folding Bluetooth keyboard off e-bay that I’m hoping I can use for taking notes to reduce my need for traveling with a laptop. I will say I can type as fast on a Droid after a week as I could use Palm’s Graffiti after a couple of years.

    Overall, this phone is a pretty good phone (voice quality and reception, no dropped calls that I’m aware of). And it’s only a middling camera, camcorder, web surfing device, GPS, and car racing data acquisition device. But having all of these in one device is just amazing (particularly the racing app, I had no idea I was turning more than 1 lateral G on street tires while autocrossing….). Maybe my biggest ‘wow’ moment that I didn’t expect was finding out I could stream my favorite New Orleans radio station in the car while the GPS was still running. There are some rough edges but it’s a nice experience.

Comments are closed.