Virtual keyboards review
Posted by Luca Morandi on January 7, 2008
Since the release of the Iphone, virtual keyboards are becoming more and more popular. Not everybody will like to use their fingers with a virtual keyboard for text input, but it’s a good alternative for handwriting recognition on devices without an hardware keyboard. I’ve used just about every keyboard during the months with my HTC Touch, so I will first introduce each keyboard, followed by a final verdict. (that’s a ‘’smackdown’’ for WMExperts visitors…)
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Windows Mobile already features an onscreen keyboard, but the thing is too small for finger typing and it looks really nasty. They obviously wanted to cram in as much buttons as possible, and the lack of visual feedback makes it even less usable. Yes, you can use commands with the Ctl button, but in what kind of situation would you use that? Fortunately, there are a number of decent virtual keyboards available, and some are free! |
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Spb keyboard has been around for quite some time now, and the commercial application features a full-screen thumb keyboard in landscape mode. It’s probably great if you have big, fat fingers, but the main draw is the limited text view (because it’s full-screen, you can only see your last few words while writing). |
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The second commercial keyboard is Zoomboard, and this one is smaller in screen size- yet still perfectly usable. The keys are placed close to each other, and when you touch a key, a magnifying glass appears above in the screen- highlighting the current key in red, while also showing the keys around it. The magnifying glass disappears when you release your finger, and this reduces the number of errors (if you hit the wrong key, you just slide your finger to the right key before releasing it). |
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PocketCM keyboard is freeware, and it works similair like Zoomboard. A key becomes magnified when you press and hold it, again allowing you to slide away in case of an error. The application comes with a number of skins and key lay-outs, plus you can easily change the lay-out yourself. |
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The last keyboard is also freeware, and it’s called TouchPal. It has a lot of functions for fast text input and easy navigation, and the functions are separated with tabs. The keys are big and can be used in multiple ways, with three characters per key (you have to swipe in a certain direction to select a characters i.e. left, right, up and down). It has a separated number tab, plus two additional tabs with shortcuts like paste or www. |
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The HTC Touch Dual comes with an HTC keyboard, but you can download it as freeware on certain sites as well. The keyboard looks a bit like Touchpal, with two characters per key. Of course I tried it, and found it to be very simple i.e. bad text prediction and although the keys are quite big, I just kept hitting wrong ones and making a lot of errors.
The final verdict
I tried all of the virtual keyboards above, and this is what I think about them. If you forget the filthy interface, the built-in keyboard is the best one to use with a stylus because the keys are so close to each other. However you still can’t compare it to finger-friendly keyboards, and stylus-users might prefer handwriting recognition for text input.
Spb fullscreen keyboard also doesn’t cut it for me, because it’s not responsive enough and the limited text view is a real hassle. Even worse is the lack of visual feedback from the keys, with instead an optional red arrow which screams ”Windows Mobile 2003” and blurs your screen when typing. I think you get my point.
Zoomboard and PocketCM keyboard are similar competitors, although one application is commercial and the other is free. Zoomboard has nicer graphics, which is logic as it’s commercial software. But then again, PocketCM keyboard uses skins and you can customize the complete lay-out of the keys. PocketCM keyboard wins the battle, because the keyboard adjusts itself to the screen mode- making the keyboard wider when the screen is in landscape mode. Zoomboard doesn’t do this, just like the built-in keyboard. This is a serious let down since a wider keyboard makes typing with both thumbs less difficult, wich of course increases text input speed and is less finger straining.
Logicalwise, PocketCM keyboard was the first application that I installed, as the original HTC Touch came with the built-in WM keyboard only. I was happy with it for quite some weeks, constantly trying to improve my typing speed and accuracy. That was until I came across Touchpal on the web, which I installed out of curiosity. After typing on it for ten minutes, I immediately wiped PocketCM keyboard out of my main memory. Boy, did I love that swiping action, and the buttons were huge compared to those of PocketCM keyboard. Yes, it took up more screen-estate then the previous keyboard, but I could live with that. I activated precise text input which deactivates the dictionary, because it’s English-only and I write a lot in Dutch. At least with PocketCM keyboard, you can chose a dictionary or import your own- this and the skins and adjustable lay-out make PocketCM keyboard highly configurable. So I left the latter behind me, and used Touchpal for a couple of weeks.
Then a (minor) updated version of PocketCM came out, and I reinstalled the freeware. With both keyboards now on my device, I felt stuck between them. In portrait mode Touchpal kicks ass, but when entering bigger amounts of text I prefer holding the device in landscape mode (I always type with both thumbs, and this will eventually hurt when typing on the narrow keyboard in portrait mode). That’s why I came home to PocketCM keyboard, because Touchpal takes up a big chunk of screen estate in landscape mode, and wastes a lot of it…
So what’s the conclusion? The best virtual keyboards currently available for Windows Mobile happen to be both free! Well, for now at least, as both keyboards seem to work until a certain date in 2008 (since when does freeware expires?!). So I’m back to using PocketCM as my main keyboard, but I do miss the big keys of Touchpal when I have to type something like a text message in portrait mode. I like PocketCM best (for it’s dictionary, landscape mode and it’s configurations). Although if you’re mainly a portrait mode user, I seriously recommend Touchpal.
Update: Touchpal just released version 2.0, with a lot of added value that makes me want to go back to it. There is multi-language support; a Dutch dictionary would increase my speed and reduce the number of errors. You can now install the application (which has also been reduced till less then 1 MB) on your expansion card; that would save me valuable memory. The sad part of this story however is what I already feared, that they would make a commercial application of it (nothing wrong with that, but I just love freeware). Touchpal now features a ‘’Standard’’ and ‘’Professional’’ edition, these versions are respectively free and 19.99 USD. The latter has the most sweet things of course, like mistyping Auto-correction (Standard version only has smart word prediction). It’s highly customizable (you already know how much I like that), with gimmicks like emoticons, resizable lay-out and a drag ‘n drop SPACE button (and much more!). The SPACE button is located in the center by default, where it used to be located in the left corner (a nice improvement). But the best improvement of all is… IT NOW SUPPORTS LANDSCAPE MODE!!!! When writing this editorial I chose PocketCM keyboard as my main keyboard because of the landscape mode, but now that Touchpal supports it too I’m switching to it again…
Landscape mode on Touchpal, a dream coming true!
