Quote:
Originally Posted by tokuzumi
While you prefer a keyboard, the droid doesn't deliver when it comes to ease of use on the keyboard. My cousin hates it, John from DroidDog stopped using it, and these folks:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/18158..._droid_ii.html
And a humorous analogy of what it's like to use the Droid's keyboard:
http://www.rinish.com/component/opti...emid,78/p,165/
Also, HTCs decision to remove the keyboards from their phones are two fold: One, copy a design that works (millions of iPhone users can't be wrong, right  ) Plus, talk to people who use software keyboards. The hero has fantastic spelling correction. Sometimes, too good. I type as fast, or faster on my hero, than I ever did on my mogul or treo.
Two, warranty issues. I used a mogul for about 4 months. I went through 3 of them. The keyboard would either not work, or 3 or 4 of the same characters would shoot out, meaning I'd have to backspace like a mo-fo. Also, I saw numerous reports on this board of touch pro keyboards going out on a regular basis. A company will spend less money on repairs for a keyboard-less phone. That is why RIM went to a optical-type trackball design, and you are seeing the legend and the incredible with optical trackballs.
Like I said from the beginning; if the Eris had more marketing/advertising dollars spent on what the device could do,by both Verizon and/or HTC, not some vanilla Verizon BOGO commercial, about how it would fit into someone's life, it would sell better. It's the fault of HTC and Verizon together. Verizon and Motorola worked together on the droid ads, so why couldn't HTC do something as well?
I like how you still make it sound like android 1.5 and 2.X are the same. People want new now. Not wait. If you could choose to have the newest thing now, vs waiting 3-6 months, what would you do?
Taken from wikipedia:
Motorola's handset division recorded a loss of $1.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007, while the company as a whole earned $100 million during that quarter.[11] It lost several key executives to rivals[12] and the web site TrustedReviews has called the company's products repetitive and uninnovative.[13] Motorola laid off 3,500 workers in January 2008[14], followed by a further 4,000 job cuts in June[15] and another 20% cut of its research division a few days later.[16] In July 2008, a large number of executives left Motorola to work on Apple Inc.'s iPhone.[17] The company's handset division was also put on offer for sale.[18] In July 2008, analyst Mark McKechnie from American Technology Research said that Motorola "would be lucky to fetch $500 million" for selling its handset business and analyst Richard Windsor said that Motorola might have to pay someone to take the division off the company and that the company may even exit the handset market altogether.[19] Its global market share has been on the decline; from 18.4% of the market in 2007, it had a share of just 6.0% by Q1 2009 but at last Motorola scored a profit of $26 million in Q2 and showed increase of 12% in stocks first time after lose in many quarters.
Motorola was not in the best shape (their phone division) prior to the release of the Droid, losing 66% of their market share.
Unless I'm missing something, I don't see any differences in the Hero vs the Eris in your link, other than the SAR value (head and body). How are they slightly different? And they are 15 grams apart in weight, which is half an ounce, or not noticable. |
#1: You saying the keyboard sucks on the Droid only furthers my point. HTC knows darn well they can put out a better keyboard than the one on the Droid. So the fact that such a crappy keyboard was actually being marketed (and beating them handily in sales) had to make them take notice.
#2: Find me some posts with people complaining about the keyboard on their TP2. You won't, because everyone loves that keyboard and it has no major issues. We're not talking about devices from several years ago here, we're talking about the latest and greatest. And the TP2 keyboard was not defective, and there has never been a better keyboard on a device. Nobody is getting exchanges on their TP2 due to keyboard issues.
#3: Like I said from the beginning- if Verizon thought the Eris was a better device than the Droid, they would have marketed it as such. You keep acting like HTC went to Verizon and asked them not to sell it or something. Verizon picked the one they wanted to market, and one look at the numbers shows they made the right choice.
#4: Of course I want the newest OS. But that doesn't mean I was considering the Samsung Intrepid when I bought my TP2. I knew the TP2 was better, and I knew it would have an upgrade to WM 6.5 eventually (and cooked 6.5 ROMs even sooner). So the fact that the Intrepid had WM 6.5 and the TP2 only had WM 6.1 made no difference to me.
#5: So Motorola's handset division had some issues. I still don't see how that helps your point. Basically Motorola went for a home run and chose to put a keyboard on their last hope- and it worked. If it had failed, then maybe you could say "nobody wants a keyboard so it was a dumb decision" or something like that. But it worked, so clearly it was a good decision on their part.
#6: You keep saying how the error correction is great, and you can type fast, and all that. You keep missing the fact that your screen is only 3-4 inches, and you are losing over half of that to the virtual keyboard everytime you use it. I like to see more than only 3 or so lines of text when I type a huge document (or a post like this one). If all I cared about was speed, I could probably get by with a virtual keyboard. I honestly don't think I could ever be as fast on a virtual keyboard, but I could learn to live with it. But I absolutely have to be able to type without looking at times, and I need the full screen to display what I am typing. If I am only typing a 2 sentence text message, fine, I can get by with the 3 or so line viewing area. But if I am typing up a huge document (or a long post like this one) then I need the full screen.
#7: There is absolutely no denying the keyboard played a role in the Droid's success. Verizon came right out marketing the fact that it had a keyboard, and I personally know people that chose it over the Nexus One (and changed carriers in the process) because it had a keyboard. You keep mentioning that the Eris wasn't marketed the same as the Droid, and I am saying the keyboard is a big reason why. If the Eris had a keyboard, maybe Verizon would have chose it as the flagship device. Maybe they still would have picked the Droid, but at least one of the main things they marketed about the Droid would have also been valid on the Eris.
Plenty of people want keyboards on their smartphones. This is not even debatable. There are plenty of people that want keyboards on their iPhones, and plenty of people using Blackberry devices with keyboards too. We don't have to only look at the Droid for evidence that people want a keyboard. I only mentioned the Droid because it killed HTC in a head to head sales battle on the same carrier. HTC seems to try to emulate successful devices, so hopefully we will see some keyboard devices from them. we all know HTC can put out way better keyboards than the Droid's, so lets all hope HTC shows us (and everyone else) what we already know they can do.
I personally want my smartphone to be able to replace my laptop and there is no way that is possible without a keyboard. I know there are kids out there who just want a smartphone for text messaging. But I actually use mine like a laptop. There is just no way I could take notes during a meeting/class/seminar/etc on a virtual keyboard with only a 3 text line viewing area- while still paying attention to the speaker's presentation.