Database Users

Would you recommend it?

Hi,
I am currently using a Samsung F480 and I really have to say the difference in the touch screen experience is very much noticeable compared to my HTC Wizard (I'd probably call it Apple-esque - even though I never actually used their phone), however at the very same time I also have to admit that I am really missing the possibilities Windows Mobile offers.
So when I first read about the Touch HD it seemed it would unify all those. Well, meanwhile I found out that the touch screen technology basically remained the same so I'd really be interested to hear how you would actually rate it? Does one still have to press/push the screen or does a simply touch do it as well?
Apart from the touch screen topic I am also a bit uncertain after reading threads like this and in particular vangrieg's posting. How would you rate the overall performance?
Basically what I would be looking for would be a compact phone with a good display, easily extensible (Windows Mobile) and a nice touch screen experience (Apple) ....

i have it for a week now and i am very satisfied with it. Not one program crashed and no reboot so far. Internet browsing is fast and really usable. For the first time ever i really like to surf the net while commuting on the subway. GPS with TomTom7 is great - i locks in seconds even when in downtown surrounded by skyscrapers.
regarding the touchscreen, i find that i have to press really hard to get a reaction. at first i even was reluctant to press so hard because i thought i would break it with the stylus. but now i am glad that it does not react to simple touching because i usually carry it in the pocket of my trousers and touch the display when handling it and it should not react to simple touching in my view - and it does not.

Thanks kkrammer, so you havent noticed respectively cant confirm the lag mentioned by donbronzi and jon- in the indicated thread. I am asking in particular because vangrieg stated the used Qualcomm processor shouldnt be the fastest.
As to the touch screen, this is certainly a subjective matter but personally I really like Samsung's way to respond even to a very very light touch without having to actually press it. So you would say one actually has to press it, a light touch doesnt do it?

Touch HD finger pressure
After owning a Touch Diamond, I feel that the screen is much more responsive. I dont have to press hard at all. I really like it so far. Yes it is a bit bigger and heavier, its still thin. All my programs are working great.

Thanks wfhowell, actually I just went to a store and expectedly they didnt have an HD yet, however there was the Diamond and considering my touch tests I slowly begin to understand the Apple fanboys. Coming from the Samsung F480 I was almost unable to use it. So how much would you say was the HD improved in this area?
Maybe someone who used Apple's, the F480 and the HD could outline where he/she would see the differences.

hi drzoid
i know what you mean about the screen but thats the difference between the two different screen technologies. if you want the ability to use a stylus the phone can only detect it if you push. iphones can measure the current through your finger with a lot less screen pressure.
that said i use rhe advanced configuration tool from the diamond forum to make the screen more sensitive. not as nice as iphone but close

Its the best phone till today... awesome tough still not perfect..
Unless you still think that a phone requires a QWERTY keyboard (I haven't missed on yet on this awesome phon) I'd run to my local dealer

Is it worth paying £500 to upgrade from the diamond? I'm not sure wether to go for it or not? Is the HD just a diamond with a bigger screen? Its a lot of money to pay just for that.

marcel808 said:
hi drzoid
i know what you mean about the screen but thats the difference between the two different screen technologies. if you want the ability to use a stylus the phone can only detect it if you push. iphones can measure the current through your finger with a lot less screen pressure.
that said i use rhe advanced configuration tool from the diamond forum to make the screen more sensitive. not as nice as iphone but close
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Thanks Marcel, I know Apple's touch screen as well as - probably - the F480's measure via the skin but nonetheless I was "shocked" today when I saw what touching means in terms of the Diamond.
How "close" would you say is the sensitivity you mentioned?
Can someone who has experience with the Wizard and the HD tell if there is an actual difference in the sensitivity.
I'd love to get an HD - even if its price is currently almost prohibitive - but I am not sure whether I'd really like to go back.

mwatson said:
Is it worth paying £500 to upgrade from the diamond? I'm not sure wether to go for it or not? Is the HD just a diamond with a bigger screen? Its a lot of money to pay just for that.
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its not worth the upgrade in my opinion.

I found you have to push a fair bit harder with the stylus on the screen than with your finger. If you use your finger it responds to a very light touch in comparism and is very responsive.

Thanks, for a real-world example, how hard would one have to press to slide the tabbar on the home screen left and right. Would just placing the finger without actual pressure be enough?

hi drzoid
how sensitive is the screen on mine...not sure how best to answer.
On an iphone I hardly have to touch the screen. As soon as the skin touches, thats enough.
With the HD, if I press the screen, I have to push until the top of my finger squashes by 1mm. Does that makes sense??!
So try pushing on a hard surface so 1mm of your finger squashes...and thats an HD

marcel808 said:
On an iphone I hardly have to touch the screen. As soon as the skin touches, thats enough.
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Just like with the F480.
marcel808 said:
With the HD, if I press the screen, I have to push until the top of my finger squashes by 1mm. Does that makes sense??!
So try pushing on a hard surface so 1mm of your finger squashes...and thats an HD
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Thank you Marcel, perfect explanation, even though I am not sure whether this is really close if one has to push 1mm into the screen .
Somehow my excitement gets colder, unfortunately

F480 has a capacitive screen, just like the iPhone and G1, so the HD would be worse touchy-wise (resistive screen), but according to reviews HD's screen is quite close to iPhone's sensitivity. Anyway, you can't write with the stylus on those and you can on the HD

Insaneboy said:
F480 has a capacitive screen, just like the iPhone and G1, so the HD would be worse touchy-wise (resistive screen), but according to reviews HD's screen is quite close to iPhone's sensitivity. Anyway, you can't write with the stylus on those and you can on the HD
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Well, personally I dont really need a stylus, although the magnetic of the HD makes a precious impression. Anyhow Samsung's screen is what I would really define as touch screen. It would be interesting how close it is, but the 1mm Marcel mentioned doesnt sound too close .... I guess I will have to wait until I can see the HD live.
What a shame almost

For me, the ability to use stylus is a big plus. I like the option of being able to use product such as Netfront Browser. It is a lot easier to click on links and to type quickly on keyboards as compared to using finger. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against fingers. In fact, 99% of the time I use my device with just fingers. There are times when I feel that stylus is a lot easier. I consider this to be a plus over iPhone actually. I wish iPhone can support both, because then I need not zoom in before activating a link.

I would say it's about the same as using a touchpad on a laptop if using your finger, it's pretty good

mwatson said:
Is it worth paying £500 to upgrade from the diamond? I'm not sure wether to go for it or not? Is the HD just a diamond with a bigger screen? Its a lot of money to pay just for that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have both the diamond (business phone) and, recently, the HD (personal phone). The HD is a step change in a number of ways. The larger screen, in purely size terms, makes sense of the touchflo interface. Buttons are big, and useable, and I'm rarely (if ever) pulling out the stylus. Also the software itself is faster, more developed (losts of little changes - like answering a call uses a finger gesture, rather than pressing a button - which means you are much less likely to inadvertantly answer an incoming call in your pocket. a little thing, but one of a myriad of significant little changes). The stock ROM is blisteringly fast in comparison (my diamond is the t-mobile version, and a shocker in comparison). Given that they are roughly the same hardware it shows what the diamond may become capable of. The screen is spectacular. The sensitivity (though lacking multi-touch, no biggie for me) feels just right. The battery life literally takes my breath away. I've run it for two lumps of two days, and not yet got the battery below 50%. My diamond corpses after about 24 hours.
It's the best WM device I've had by a country mile, and I've had a few. I still like my diamond, though. It's little and I can look after it much better when I'm out for a riotous night on the town. The HD is big, and until I can get a silicone case for it, it's a dropped smashed phone waiting to happen (I hate having to remove a phone from a case to use it, it massively increases the chance of accidents).

Philio25 said:
I would say it's about the same as using a touchpad on a laptop if using your finger, it's pretty good
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Really? If I judge it from my Acer Aspire I would then actually call it decent.
I really have to find a store where you can try it out .
eaglesteve said:
For me, the ability to use stylus is a big plus. I like the option of being able to use product such as Netfront Browser. It is a lot easier to click on links and to type quickly on keyboards as compared to using finger. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against fingers. In fact, 99% of the time I use my device with just fingers. There are times when I feel that stylus is a lot easier. I consider this to be a plus over iPhone actually. I wish iPhone can support both, because then I need not zoom in before activating a link.
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Click to collapse
Well, I can talk only for the F480 which actually has Netfront and there you can click links without zooming, even if you have aim well sometimes.
Lets say I am not against a stylus but I am for the touch experience the F480 brings .

Teetering on the edge of getting the HD2, but need clarification...

Hi all,
well as my x1's screen is not working and I may not be able to fix it on warranty (still working on that as I have to take it in to see) I am going to get a new phone, the HD2 seems to fit the bill as I do a lot of reading and watching vids on my phone... the big screen appeals but I use Pleco a chinese dictionary and so much more. It enables me to write in chinese and with a stylus this is fast and simple... however I am worried that I will not be able to use a stylus on the capacitive screen and thus it will render Pleco in operable or nearly useless (the ability to write Chinese characters is very important)... thoughts on this, will the finger be able to write accurately enough, can I get a stylus or make one to use (ie do I have to buy a special one or will a slightly thicker one work ok (compared to an x1 stylus for example)... thanks for any advice or info...

The iphone stylli even with tweaked screen sensitivity don't seem to work well on it. The Dagii stylus for the hd2 looks good though. Youtube it.

Thanks for the heads up... that might be what I am after although I have read there are issues with usability...

Shadowdh said:
Thanks for the heads up... that might be what I am after although I have read there are issues with usability...
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HTC have launched their own stylus for use on capacitive screens. I think they are available on Clove.co.uk and many other stores.

HD2 and Pleco
I have an HD2 and use Pleco almost every day. There is an option to use the whole screen to hand-write characters. You have to use your finger, but its not that bad. Sometimes when I try to go too fast the results aren't super accurate, but overall its really not any more inconvenient that having to pull a stylus out.
I'd say it doesn't impact usability at all, and the larger screen makes the software much better in my opinion.

I have tried every stylus I could find and none of them work very well with the hd2 at all. I have found that your finger is much easier to use and more responsive and accurate than any of the capacitive stylus'... so if it's an app that needs a stylus and isn't easy to use with your finger, you're going to have a difficult time with the hd2.

a diy stylus for hero

i accidentaly found a "stylus" for my hero, a hotdog bread worked just great as a finger substitute..
not as precise as a finger (due to its size) but worked just as well.
i have tryed numerous other things as a stylus, but none worked..
have anyone else found a working material for styli?

the screen of the here is a capacitive screen and is different than f.e. the screen from the htc diamond, therefor you should use your fingers for best results and not breaking the screen
i accidentaly found a "stylus" for my hero, a hotdog bread worked just great as a finger substitute..
not as precise as a finger (due to its size) but worked just as well.
i have tryed numerous other things as a stylus, but none worked..
have anyone else found a working material for styli?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
-------------------------------------
Sent from my HTC Hero

HTC do sell a stylus for the hero - but i think it is £16 - which is a fair bit to just not use your fingers! Failing that, have you checked ebay? Probabaly pick up a capacitive stylus for cheap and give it a go (i have not used a stylus on a capacitive screen so can't say how well this would work!)
Hope this help though.

to clarify things a bit; DIY means do it yourself.
i know there are stylii available on the market, but im not going to pay a "fortune" for a small stick with a "high tech" end, hence DIY
there should be materials that work just as well as human fingers, just need to identify them..

My theory was you could likely pick one up on ebay for £1-£2, which would be less for parts of making your own?
that being said, a quick google search did bring up some results. Basically, anything that is sufficiently conductive between you and your phone will work as a capacitive stylus (i think). How About This?
(Sorry I didn't mention this in my first post)

http://lifehacker.com/5550029/diy-touch+screen-stylus-new-and-improved

a wet piece of plant will work for a while (a rolled leaf or a stalk)

A43 touch screen

I got an A43 in part because it's got a resistive touchscreen so I can use it with an ordinary stylus (for instance, I am developing an astronomy app and want to be able to select individual objects on screen from a crowded field without any zooming, just as I can on my Palm). However, I've found that the A43 has the same problem with its resistive touchscreen that my Palm TX does: sometimes, when a touch is released, it registers a largish (0.25 to 0.5 inch) movement. This causes problems--it makes button presses in on-screen keyboards get registered in the wrong location.
Anybody else notice this?
On the Palm TX, the user community eventually figured out what the problem was and a third-party vendors manufactured a hardware solution. The problem was that Palm skimped and made a substandard plastic digitizer, which made it distort on release. The solution was that someone manufactured replacement glass digitizers you could install (you can still buy them for about $25) and those who got them were quite happy with them.
My A43 has a plastic screen, and not a very hard one at that. (My Clie stylus would scratch it lightly, so I had to switch to a softer-tip HTC stylus.)
With a good quality resistive touchscreen, it would be worth my while to put some effort into modifying AnySoftKeyboard to support sweeping a stylus through hexagonal keys in an an ATOMIK layout, with all the ASCII symbols available together, like in my PalmOS myKbd app, even if I end up being the only user (I get the feeling a lot of people don't like using a stylus).

not sure what to say about this, besides the fact that my current screen (Archos 43) is annoying because it doesn't allow me play emulators that require multitouch, pewpew, etc. (not that pewpew is a good game anyway). I kind of like the stylus because it feels more ergonomic than rubbing my fingers all over the screen, but I do have the same issues. I typically use Swype or Smart Keyboard Pro because Swype is _the best_ at predicting even if you swyping half-asleep texting your friend for no reason. Smart keyboard pro lets you configure swipe gestures to switch between regular keyboard w/ suggestions, arrow keypad+space (for time-wasting flash games), compact (two letters in one key), and T9, like an older phone's crap keyboard but with really nice prediction. Overall, I can't complain because my Archos has twice the features (camera, android, external speaker) of my older media device, for about the same cost ($230), even though it doesn't have a sexy AMOLED screen and days of battery life (still pretty nice though, and it doesn't feel so flimsy).
brb need to rewrite the past 10 minutes of this post, not sure why i'm talking about this
also, I use my nintendo ds lite stylus just because it works and I made a scotch-tape holster on the back of my Archos so I wouldn't use the black piece of cheap plastic. ಠ_ಠ

I sent my A43 back for RMA, and the one I got back is amazingly better. I can actually type with my thumbs on the on-screen keyboard. On the old one, even if I used a stylus, I'd get spurious keystrokes, sometimes even on keys that aren't next to the one I was pressing. I still get that on the new one, but less often.
Maybe it's because I'm keeping the screen protector on?
I also wonder if the issue isn't that a stylus is actually bad for these screens?

This is completely off topic but it's great to see you here Pruss. You greatly enhanced the Palm experience. I'm sure you will be a great asset to the Android community.

Neo Cortex said:
This is completely off topic but it's great to see you here Pruss. You greatly enhanced the Palm experience. I'm sure you will be a great asset to the Android community.
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I have much less time than I did when I was involved PalmOS. But I've made a few simple apps (you can search the market for "Omega Centauri"), and am planning an astronomy app.

Stylus or no stylus???

What do you guys think? Is there a good use for it? Do you use it? What are your thoughts in general.

i use a stylus once in a while, but its not what i expected originally. I had played with the digitizer stylus on the htc flyer earlier, and that was such a fantastic stylus experience, i thought i would be able to have that same level of detail, but apparently it doesnt work that way on other tablets, htc flyer has a special digitizer layer on top of the capacitive screen, that makes input form the special digitizer pen more accurate, like i can literally write chicken scratch on that thing and it is perfectly legible.
but on regular capacitive screens, the best stylus wont do much more than what your finger does. If you want to use the stylus just for swiping, and moving stuff, then it's okay i suppose, especially when its cold. But its not a handwriting replacement, or even a decent sketching tool, just a finger replacement. Regular styluses have this weird squishy foam tip also, that annoys me.

fraz82 said:
i use a stylus once in a while, but its not what i expected originally.
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^^^^
This.
I have the Samsung stylus and use it all the time. To me, it's a tad more precise than my finger and it keeps the screen clean of finger prints. The only app it seems to work better than average in is the Asus notes app that's available in the dev section. Even then, it's for quick notes and phone numbers not actual writing.

I'm using one now. The biggest advantage for me is when entering text. My wife asked for one. I grabed one at Walmart, tried it out and had to get one for myself. I like it.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

Yep I agree with everyone above. I purchased the Jot stylus which is supposed to be one of the better ones and it was just bleh. I wanted to use my Tab for note taking and stuff and it just won't register cleanly especially if you're trying to write 'normally'. For drawing and bigger letters it's fine, but anything smaller, forget it.

spyder560 said:
Yep I agree with everyone above. I purchased the Jot stylus which is supposed to be one of the better ones and it was just bleh. I wanted to use my Tab for note taking and stuff and it just won't register cleanly especially if you're trying to write 'normally'. For drawing and bigger letters it's fine, but anything smaller, forget it.
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Click to collapse
There's an app for that. Touchscreentune in the dev section. It helps a great deal, though it doesn't make the Tab perfect. One caveat... You need to be rooted to use it.