Typing On The E71: Predictive Text Or Standard Input?



Screenshot0015 Typing on the Nokia E71 has become extremely pleasant as of late – ever since I enabled predictive text and have become more comfortable with a QWERTY keyboard used with my thumbs. I have always been a huge T9 fan coming from the Nokia N82 and N73 so making the transition to a QWERTY smartphone was actually a challenge for me. I’m extremely fast on a normal keyboard, typing nearly 80 words per minute, my brain just needed to be trained to apply this to the mobile phone. Between the daily rigors or work, play, and life in general my brain took it’s time learning QWERTY.

When I first received the E71 I was ecstatic to see that predictive text was present and turned it on immediately. After a few days I realized that I was having a hard time because I wasn’t looking at the screen to see what it was predicting, instead I was staring at the keyboard looking for where to land my thumbs. So for the past 7 months or so I turned off predictive text and just used standard text input. Between training myself on the E71 and reviewing the Nokia 5800 the past few months I’ve become very acquainted with the QWERTY keypad that the world is raving about. Woo! Finally catch up with the times Mike!

Here Is Where Predictive Text Comes In

About 4 weeks back I decided to enable predictive text just for the hell of it to give it a second chance. Ever since then I haven’t looked back. Since I no longer have to focus on my thumbs and where they are on the keypad I can now look at the screen and what my Eseries device is trying to predict. I would say right now it is right about 85% of the time. For the times that the word is incorrect I simply push the up or down button and a list of words comes up that I can choose from. If I think that takes to long, I can continue typing my word and the predictive text becomes even more precise.

In the screenshots below I’m trying to spell Saturday. As you can see below the E71’s predictive text picked it up right away.

Screenshot0019

 

What if I didn’t want to spell Saturday? Maybe I wanted to ask him if he’s going to Saturn?

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As you can see I have a decent amount of words to choose from.

I really believe that the E71 remembers commonly used words and adds them first. It also remembers words that are not in the dictionary, and makes them available to use as predictive next in the future. A friend using my device might find it odd when typing that the first words that my E71 predicts are rather vulgar ;)

Still Not 100% With QWERTY

I know that I’m not at the comfort level I’d like to be with a QWERTY keypad. I’m almost there, but not quite. I fired up my Nokia N82 recently when going out for a night on the town recently (the 5pm camera + xenon flash still kicks ass) and felt a sense of relief when I started pounding out a few text messages.  Even in my recent article about the Nokia 5800, Nokia’s first S60 touch device, I talked about how I’m more comfortable using the touch T9 method rather than the full screen QWERTY option.

I guess I can say that I’m a T9 guy at heard, but my recent love with predictive text on the E71 has made the transition that much easier.

I’m curious about all the readers. Do you turn on predictive text or stick to the standard input method?

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