In search of the QWERTY king

[slitchfield]

After being struck by an informed comment by Symbian's Executive Director, Lee Williams, that the touchscreen market would top out at about 30%, i.e. that at least 70% of phones will continue to be keypad or qwerty-driven, I wanted to get to the bottom of which smartphone keyboard, in the Symbian world, at least, was the best, in terms of size, feel, capability and efficiency. Oh, and I wasn't allowed to include any obsolete models... [Ouch.]

Read on in the full article.

[jApi NL]

For me the qwerty King is stil the 9210 . Buttons souplesse , space in between the keys , very intuitive . Of course all the shotcuts like Ctrl +

Regards jApi NL

[mozam]

I have used e90, e75 and e71 and I found e71 better than all of these. e90 and e75 were too wide for comfort and the whole process of sliding or opening the keyboard kills the purpose of replying to the text or email fast. Also the tactile feedback was not that great on e75 and the black e90. E71 is just perfect for two hands use or single hand use. My vote goes for e71 followed by e75.

I find the size of the E90 just fine, if they want to make it smaller, make it a little bit less thick the rest is fine.

The E75 is just not a replacement of the E90. I am still waiting and waiting and waiting, but nothing until now is coming. Yes hardware wise there are a few now already on the marker or coming but those are all WinMob devices.. :(

Why is the E75 not a replacement? Screen resolution.. I will not get a phone that has a smaller screen resolution then my E90.. Best thing would be is a E75 with a touchscreen 800x480 resolution on the front.. That i would buy.

Why do i want a big resolution? Simple i think all the oohh and the aahh for example with the iphone that can zoom in and out of webpages is just a result of a hack around the fact that you have a small resolution. On my e90 i can pretty much few any pages that i want because of the 800 pixels.. i never have the need to zoom. I dont want to zoom

[Rafe]

I think this also demonstrates how hard it is to quantify a good keyboard. I'd rate the E71 and E75 on a similar level (and unlike many I never got on that well with the E90 keyboard).

For me the E71 is among the 'best' because of the design constraints involved. The E75 and N97 are not noticeably better despite having more room to play with (albeit limited by slide design).

The N97 isn't great, but I haven't found nearly as bad as some reviews seem to suggest. Like any of these devices there are compromises involved. I find it fits comfortably into my hands for two thumbed typing.

Once I've got use to a keyboard I find relatively little difference in speeds (+/- 10%). I'm definitely quicker on QWERTY than T9 though.

while the math may show that the e90 is king, in terms of real world use... i found the e90 uncomfortable to use because it was difficult to reach the keys in the middle, possible, but difficult. i personally found the width of the e61i but hated the spongy keys. if they combine that width with the tactile feedback of the keys on the e71. i think that would be the device for me.

[celios]

Although you've done your best to be objective and semi-scientific, I reckon keyboards (especially small ones) are quite subjective.

Moving from an E71 to an N97, my larger than average thumbs are finding it easier to hit the right keys on the N97 due to the larger gap between the keys. So although the 'feel' of the E71 was nicer, I make fewer mistakes on the N97.

Having a standard/non-standard layout is a bit of a red herring IMHO. If you actually use one phone for a week or two exclusively and do a fair bit of typing, you get used to the layout. It took me about half a day to get accustomed to the N97s space bar on the right, but every review talks about that as if it was the work of satan.

This is difference between owning a phone long-term and being in a position where you swap from one to another often (I also think this is why the iPhone is much lauded in reviews but not by the real world users I know - easy to pick up and use, but shortcomings only really become apparent after weeks of onwership).

Quote: Yes, I'm sure that some people can work up a real sweat inputting text using just the number keypad, sometimes even without looking

Lol, yea i can type without looking using N95 8GB, really comfortable, but can't be as fast as qwerty ones..

I reckon E71 one's really comfortable even though the keys are a bit small, i use my fingernails most of the time to type and give me faster inputs
i wonder if its possible to type on qwerty phones without looking just like one T9 keypad =)

Having owned e61i and e71 i'd say the keyboard on e71 is much better. I havent done the measurement but I'd be really surprised if your travel distance estimate is even right. On top of that the tactile feel of the keys makes a huge difference. Trying to type on e61i keyboard after using e71 is a pain (and I used and enjoyed using e61i for two years).

The only thing e61i keyboard has on e71 is the size and spacing. However, I find the tradeoff toward one handed use a plus since I do quite a bit (more than i should) of typing while driving.

I'm very surprised at his 'informed comment' (informed how?) because I think he's wrong.

First, the iPhone factor will attract the less well off to cheaper iPhone-like devices and this will encourage manufacturers to create more such devices, finding cheaper ways to produce them and bringing the prices down.

Second, you only have to read the reviews of touch-screen phones to find that, once people are used to them, they prefer on-screen keyboards to buttons.

Thirdly, screen space is more important now as people use the web more on phones. In fact, for many people, the 'phone' is primarily an Internet device and a phone as a secondary function. How often do you use you phone for calls compared with other functions? If you need a bigger screen you have to get rid of the buttons or use a complex, expensive sliding or folding construction.

So, people will end up with keyboard-less phones because they look cool, are easier to use and have bigger screens.

[nwhitfield]

I'm torn as to what I should replace my N95 classic with, later this year. So, yesterday I wandered along to the Nokia shop for a fondle, typing a short poem into the notes app on N97, E71 and E75.

I found the N97 keyboard far too fiddly - and in particular, having to use the Fn key to access even basic things like an apostrophe would drive me mad. It may be find for those to whom punctuation is an anachronism, but as a writer, I'm not about to start sending sub-literate emails to my clients. The space bar wasn't as much of an issue as I'd imagined, but it's the punctuation that rules it out for me.

The E71 was pretty reasonable, but took a while to get up to speed, and I think I'd need to spend longer with it to be absolutely sure - I shall look forward to the E72, though, which does look like it may be a pretty reasonable step up from my N95.

My initial thoughts on seeing photos of the E75 were that it would be odd typing on a completely flat keyboard, but in fact I found it the best of the three, and it's actually a very tempting proposition - if it weren't quite so expensive. It might actually be my ideal device (that's what Steve's matrix says, too); a proper keyboard for quick texting or making phone calls, and the slide-out qwerty really is usable for when I might need to do lengthier emails or note-taking.

It's interesting, because it wasn't really a form factor I'd considered, and the E75 wasn't even really on my radar as a potential replacement until I actually had some time hands on with it and its keyboards

Want a decent keyboard? Buy a netbook or notebook and shove a usb 3G thing into it. Bob's your sister.

This is geeting uncomfortable now, all those years of reduction in size, now people want the impossible for least cost and the damn things are growing again. The answer is a little atom based notebook, not much bigger than a gigantic piePhone anyway.

Nobody has ever had the guts or the commitment to produce something like a Psion 5MX with phone in. Still would betoo big though. Stuff the keyboad, I want portable.

Personally I love the dual-function keyboard on the Sony Ericsson M600i and P1i - when you're used to it you can get a great typing speed up, and punctuation is easy to access, with the most common characters available without function buttons. The vertical form-factor keeps the phone small (though better than QVGA resolution would be nice) and allows for single-handed typing.

I hope SE produce more phones using this innovative keyboard - it provides an excellent balance between size and functionality.

[davidmaxwaterma]

I have an E90, but find even that too slow at times. So I have a bluetooth keyboard too.

Steve, how about adding the Nokia bluetooth keyboard to the table? ...or (shock) the Apple one (like I use).

I also have an E71, but really don't care for the keyboard and found myself back on the E90 after a month or two of the E71.

[fidolatry]

Calculations aside the E71 is much easier to use -- more on that here.