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Old 07-04-2009, 08:55 PM
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Matrix
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Are there SIPs that don't suck!?

Hello-

This is a vent, and a plea for help with SIPs. I don't wish to be flamed, but I've held this inside for so long I just have to get it out. If you have any suggestions, please, please let me know.

Why do all the SIPs suck?

Hardware keyboard (not really a SIP I know): First a rant on HTC build quality - borders on junk. My first 2 TPs were returned within a day (new, not refurb) since one had a key that was dangling, the other had no tactile response on several keys. My third TP was pretty good, until it had to be RMA'ed due to near-daily random hard resets. The refurb replacement has limited tactile response on the space bar. As for the software side of things, it alternates between very lagged and extremely lagged. I'm so freakin' tired of a .5s to 1s delay for each keystroke to appear. I've read the predictive stuff can cause lag, but even when disabled there is still a significant lag.

Ezinput: Quite possibly the most frustrating thing I've ever used in my entire life. Ever. It has gotten to the point where I cringe when I have to reply to a text or something, because I know it will just be one fist-pumpingly frustration after another. The XT9/ABC mode switch never, ever works - sometimes it's stuck on one or the other. Sometimes I press it and it changes, then immediately changes back, other times I press it and it stays until I type the first letter, and it goes back to whatever it was set to before. In full QWERTY mode, despite the fact that I'm typing a word letter by letter, it still tries to outsmart me, and changes what I'm typing to be what it guesses. This makes sense for T9 keys or the compact keyboard where it has to go though a series of possibilities for each key. But in QWERTY mode, why the freaking heck won't it respect the letters I've already typed? If I've typed those letters, I apparently want to use them, and if it wants to guess at the next possible letters, that's fine, but it retroactively changes the ones I've already typed! What the heck man, seriously, where is the logic in that!? This means I'm often not able to type a name or URL unless I use another SIP because it forces me to use what it guesses. The word frustrating just isn't strong enough.

TouchPal: Some aspects of this are really useful, but it looks like it walked out of Windows 3.1. I know looks aren't everything, but c'mon, there's a limit to that. Several times TouchPal has locked on me, requiring a soft reset, other times it starts to load with its zoom effect, and stops midway, requiring a soft reset to use any SIP.

FingerKeyboard: A little better than WM's default keyboard. I'd probably use it a lot more if they made it more intuitive, like press+up=uppercase and press+slideleft=backspace, similar to the default keyboard.

Am I the only one that finds ANY sort of input method to be exceedingly counter-intuitive and annoying?

Any suggestions to help me get around these problems? Particularly with Ezinput.

Thanks!

-TM
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