First 24 Hours With TouchPal
Oct 7th, 2007 by Tariq Bamadhaj
My first 24 hours with TouchPal has been a bit of a love-hate experience thus far. Maybe it’s because the software is still in testing phase and there are some bugs that needs to be ironed out. Maybe it’s me being used to another type of SIP such that using a new one makes me feel weird. Whatever the reason, I am going to use nothing but TouchPal for the next week and post another review on it. Hopefully this would give it enough time to settle in.
The Bad
Settings Not Sticking. Not sure if it’s just me but some settings of mine just does not survive a soft reset such as ‘Precise Word Entry’ and the position of my space bar.
No DPAD For Selection. I can’t seem to use the DPAD to select the suggested words. which can sometimes be troublesome. While tapping it might seem easier in some cases, using the DPAD would be much welcomed by me.
No Numpad With ABC. There were no options to input numbers when you are typing letters, something which I would have preferred. Granted that there is a dedicated option for number entry but that just means I have to tap more.
The Good
Feedback On Keys Tapped. This is really great. You get to confirm the letter tapped to ensure minimum to zero error in text entry. However, if you are typing 300 characters, I wonder if this feedback is useful.
Movable Space Bar. Some people prefer their space bars to be in the center for their QWERTY keyboards and I am one of them. Thus the option to move it to my preferred location is really refreshing.
Customized For Web Surfing. The ‘http://’, ‘www.’ and ‘.com’ shortcuts are just some of the few made available with the SIP that makes web surfing so much more enjoyable on the Pocket PC.
Conclusion
While I do not expect the bugs to be ironed out anytime soon, the advantages of this SIP far outweigh its drawbacks and I will definitely be sticking to it for quite some time. Check back in a week as I let you know the verdict on this software after fully testing it out.
(2 votes, average: 2.5 out of 5)
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Obviously, you missed a lot of cool features in TouchPal. I used it and love’in it very soon. The Good-points you mentioned are just very small part. I think word assoication feature is super cool, an innovation. The backspace button is much powerful than any other keyboards. I really love the way I deal with uppcase. The prediction works so well so far. Did you notice “precise input mode” and the shortcut (slide up backspace) to enable/disable it? Brilliant design!
Oh, I think the major bad thing is it only supports English. I really hope they can provide other language!
Yeah I do agree that its nicely designed but I have yet to fully experience it. It’s only been 24 hours so far for me
I will definitely do another review at the end of the week once I am more used to it. Nothing but TouchPal for me this week.