New Hero owner here... using it 3 weeks. LOVE the phone, love the 7 pages, love the widgets, love the screen, love SenseUI, HATE the capacitive screen.
Coming form windows mobile for past 5 years, i am expending at least 5x more time and energy to navigate or browse due to this "feature".
I am certain this has been hashed out here before, but I will settle for a short answer, even one that has a laundry list if you like.
All I ask is that you please tell me it has something to add other than MULTI-TOUCH. I could care less about pinch-zoom. Initially when seen on first i-phones it had a wow factor. But very soon on WM, with OperaMini, Netfront, Skyfire, Iris and other browsers, pinch-to-zoom was rendered irrelevant, as all of these browsers provided way more efficient way to zoom in, out, and frame the area of the screen you want to look at. One tap, or two taps, or grab a square positioner (netfront) and tap.
Regardless of marketing, not only were these solutions fantastic, I alos didn't feel any sense of loss.
Now that I HAVE multi-touch on Hero, it's way beyond "yawn". It's more like, "what in the world is the advantage here. all I see is that a capacitive screen is far inferior to a resistive screen for easily 25 reasons. I listed them elsewhere on an XDA "general" forum. Typing: worse. accurate hitting a target: worse, but not just worse, horrible. Tap-hold context menus, require twice as long to press in order to instruct the OS you're indeed pressing for the purpose of holding, vs pressing just to try to make contact. Takes twice the tap impact to activate GO and other action buttons.
So I am dying to hear what is the advantage I have been given on this fantastic $500 USD phone I bought?
2nd question: I am currently using the device straight out the box, with just maybe 25-50 aps or widgets form android marketplace -- which has been fantastically smooth user experience, with perfect degrees of feedback on what access each app will give to the phone etc... very reassuring.
Has the truly amazing world of XDA-devs made some of my major usability complaints above go away, or lessen (after rooting the phone and using a custom ROM)?
Sign me: Baffled and Dismayed in San Francisco
Are there no replies here because this has been previously beaten to death? If so, wold someone please point me to the best thread discussion on this subject matter?
Thank you.
personally, i love a capacitive screen for typing.. as long as you can hit the buttons. For me i have no problem in the horizontal view, but they shouldnt have used a "qwerty" keyboard in the horizontal view, i despise it aha.
for the browsers multi touch, personally i just think its kinda cool, but as you say not very productive.
so really to me, i just love the feeling of capacitive touch screens...when they work of course!
and i know that companies "try" to put capacitive screens on as much as possible (because the iphone and ipod touch are so popular) but you can only really have it on bigger screens. The hero has pretty much the "bare minimum" screen size, and thats why we have some problems!
sorry i didnt really answer your question, just my thoughts but i guess the advantage is (was ment to be) that iphone touch screen experience, but capacitive screens work much better when the buttons have space between them (on bigger screens!)
THis was very helpful thank you. I know what you mean that the glassy smoothness is elegant and competes, I guess, with the look & feel of the Apple handheld devices. But also you seem to be answering my question, which is really the essentiual thing wanted to know:
Apparently there is ZERO added-value that capacitive brings over resistive screen than pinch-zoom... and that glossy glass feeling.
Is this correct, though? Can it really be that the primary reason for running Android on a capacitive screen is its sexiness factor in comparing to glossy look of the iphone?
I know there MUST be threads galore at XDA regarding the value of stylus for rapid composing, and more rapidly scrolling thru a long list on contacts, going into something like 2x or 5x speed flashing through the letters of the alphabet, then slowing down to land on desired contact...
The HTC Leo thread addressed this quite a bit, with both groans and raves for that WM device...
xsirhc6x said:
personally, i love a capacitive screen for typing.. as long as you can hit the buttons. For me i have no problem in the horizontal view, but they shouldnt have used a "qwerty" keyboard in the horizontal view, i despise it aha.
for the browsers multi touch, personally i just think its kinda cool, but as you say not very productive.
so really to me, i just love the feeling of capacitive touch screens...when they work of course!
and i know that companies "try" to put capacitive screens on as much as possible (because the iphone and ipod touch are so popular) but you can only really have it on bigger screens. The hero has pretty much the "bare minimum" screen size, and thats why we have some problems!
sorry i didnt really answer your question, just my thoughts but i guess the advantage is (was ment to be) that iphone touch screen experience, but capacitive screens work much better when the buttons have space between them (on bigger screens!)
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well i used apple as more of an example but i dont think i was very clear before sorry!
Although the screen is glossy and well glass, but i ment that alot of people like having that "touch" not "tap" feel. like how with capacitive you can barely touch the screen and it responds whereas resistive you have to push on the screen. so this makes companies want to use capacitive so there putting it on alot of the bigger touch screen phones
quicksite said:
Coming form windows mobile for past 5 years, i am expending at least 5x more time and energy to navigate or browse due to this "feature"
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well here is your problem. and I know exactly how you feel, having some PDA and SE P1 also with resistive touch. you'll have to get used to it, there is no other way. it looks similar, like, it's a touchscreen! but difference in technology makes it hard to shift your way of using it
same thing as forgetting clickable keyboards where you can feel edge of each key and you KNOW exactly what you have pressed... and believe me, when you get that feeling with almost microscopic P1 keyboard, first few weeks of brand new high tech on-screen typing makes you smash that phone into wall next to you... but it gets better with time
This is the correct answer. Most people prefer the touch feel of capacitive compared to the press needed for resistive screens.
xsirhc6x said:
well i used apple as more of an example but i dont think i was very clear before sorry!
Although the screen is glossy and well glass, but i ment that alot of people like having that "touch" not "tap" feel. like how with capacitive you can barely touch the screen and it responds whereas resistive you have to push on the screen. so this makes companies want to use capacitive so there putting it on alot of the bigger touch screen phones
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I moved from an Omnia i900 (WM, resistive screen) to the HTC Hero (Android, capacitive screen) and I am really enjoying the sensitivity of the Hero's screen. Everything is activated with a feather-light touch which really adds to the experience of using a touchscreen device.
On the Omnia, when I tried to halt a scrolling list with my finger, more often than not, I would end up choosing an item instead of stopping the scolling. This got irritating enough that I ended up using the scroll bars most of the time. On the Hero, the scrolling list amazingly stops when my finger makes contact without any unintended item selection. This probably has to do with the sensitivity of the capacitive screen but whatever it is, it works brilliantly.
The only time when I miss the resistive screen is if I need to accurately touch points on the screen due to poorly designed software but this can generally be avoided. Copy and paste could potentially have been a pain with a capacitive screen but the Hero has a trackball which gets the job done quite well.
I agree that multi-touch is nice to have but not critical. It is the sensitivity of the capacitive screen that really makes my day !
IMHO the capacitive screen is one of the best parts of my Hero (the other is not having to use clunky Windows Mobile anymore). It makes it so much more user friendly - and that attribute is what has made the iphone the best seller it is.
It is so much easier to scroll through my emails, texts, contacts, apps etc without accidently clicking on one and opening. And the same applies when scrolling between screens. In my last phone (HTC Touch Diamond) I was forever opening apps and windows I did not mean to when trying to scroll up down or sideways.
And scrolling long lists (I have over 200 contacts) is so easy. Just flick and let it run and then stop it with a finger. Try that on a non-capacitive screen and you are likely to open something you did not mean to open.
And, admittedly after a bit of practice, I have found the QERTY keyboard is no problem at all. It is almost as easy to use with my finger as my TD was with a stylus. And it is even easier when you are in landscape mode.
Still, each to his/her own. If, after giving it some time to get used to, you still don't like it I am sure there are plenty of alternatives out there - it always amazes me the number of different high-end phones HTC makes.
Resistive touch screen: You have to press harder to make it work better (Rinzai school)
Capacitive touch screen: You have to touch lighter to make it work better (Soto school)
Volker1 said:
Resistive touch screen: You have to press harder to make it work better (Rinzai school)
Capacitive touch screen: You have to touch lighter to make it work better (Soto school)
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Well somehow you faked me out with your zen-like branch differentiations. I clicked on Soto school first --- and I thought, therefore, that when I clicked on Rinzai, it would communicate more aggressive, harder. But it didn't!
Thus, i don't understand your analogy other than making it up in my head, with the meaning being:
Expend less energy and force, grasshopper, and all will be revealed.
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Since the day of my posting this topic, I am starting to feel a shift by gentler tapping. In some cases, yes, I am seeing a difference in better responsiveness.
But I have to admit that this is not always the case. Leading to:
Dac0908:
well here is your problem. and I know exactly how you feel, having some PDA and SE P1 also with resistive touch. you'll have to get used to it, there is no other way.
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I am starting to get it. Quick illustration: My sim card (my old one from t-mobile wing) happens to be going bad, I just discovered. So I had to swap it out from my HERO back to my WING just to see if I could make a phone call. I had not used the WING (resistive) for a while.
I immediately started making mistakes in the opposite direction. I wasn't pushing hard enough now, and was not activating my selection. So, young grasshopper may be getting the Zen of Capacitive Touch!
it looks similar, like, it's a touchscreen! but difference in technology makes it hard to shift your way of using it. same thing as forgetting clickable keyboards where you can feel edge of each key and you KNOW exactly what you have pressed... and believe me, when you get that feeling with almost microscopic P1 keyboard, first few weeks of brand new high tech on-screen typing makes you smash that phone into wall next to you... but it gets better with time
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I get your point exactly... So, sounds like the people in this forum who have had their HEROs for longer time... must think I am just whining! ha hah
Here are my conclusions thus far:
(a) lighter touch IS helping select more easily.
(b) I began to do as others have said on the soft keyboard-- aim your finger just a nudge above the keys. (because the point of tangency between finger and screen is quite a bit below the tip of the fingernail) (** me thinks they should provide a settings option called "Offset finger touch?" -- and I could select that to in fact shift all the target zones of the on-screen keys slightly below the way they display on-screen, thereby improving accuracy dramatically.)
(c) even with "getting used to" adjustments, the accuracy on the portrait-layout keyboard is still lower on those left edge and right edge keys... And thus I am finding that landscape keyboard is almost becoming required for me (and i have thin fingers!)
(d) On the WM resistive screen, I found that, when using handwriting via stylus, the system really did LEARN to compensate for the style of handwriting of an individual by going thru the alphabet to select the path of drawing each letter that best matches how I write... it absolutely improved handwriting recognition) (AND MAY AS WELL SAY: I miss that the most of all things: I loved being able to jot notes down with stylus and handwriting. I used that daily... SO I miss it)
Similarly, there is an OFFSET ANGLE adjustment on the WM input screen controls, which absolutely made a huge difference: I the natural positioning of a hand and fingers in resting mode on a flat object (a screen) has one's index finger aiming on an angle inward. Thus, the angle adjustment was a smart user interface setting, that I would guess WM came up with over time, as better recognition of this issue surfaced.
(e) I can't expect to use my capacitive screen phone in the lazy ways I used my WM phone with resistive: ie, laying down in bed and tapping out a message to send. When I try to do that with Hero, the angles of finger-contact with the screen are "off" from a standing or sitting alignment of where you hold the device and how you strike the keys. Trying to tap out a note using portrait mode, while laying in bed, and holding phone to its side (or any other awkward position) = probably 10% success rate of hitting the correct keys... Mostly due to that distance-factor between the tip of the finger -- the sight-targeting cross-hairs used for decades in pressing most things that need pressing -- and the underside of the finger, which makes the contact point lower than the tip by a somewhat predictable distance.
I still think there are some ways to go where various compensation settings could nail those issues and bring touch accuracy to much higher percentage, especially in those situations of at what angle you're holding the device in one hand, and tapping with the other hand, is "off", like laying in bed.
(f) Accelerometer: again, when laying in bed (lazy mode), the auto portrait-landscape shifting almost never occurs and i have to hold the phone parallel to the ground and flick it in order to get the layout adjustment, then continue at whatever angle it is I am holding the phone.
(g) WISHLIST #2: (after handwriting/ capacitive stylus is brought to market by HTC, etc) .. is: COntext-sensitive accelerometer.. such that it works in almost any hand-held 3d location, and a 90 degree shift = a shift layout command.
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Okay, these are my responses from a Human Factors Interface Design professional background.
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Maybe I will have to talk to "Charles", the guy in my nieghborhood in San Francisco, who just happens to be the designer of the original G1 for Google, both in form factor and user interface of android...
San Francisco can be pretty interesting in that way.. you never know who you'll bump into, just like in L.A. with movie stars!
kenkaw said:
I am really enjoying the sensitivity of the Hero's screen. Everything is activated with a feather-light touch which really adds to the experience of using a touchscreen device....On the Hero, the scrolling list amazingly stops when my finger makes contact without any unintended item selection. This probably has to do with the sensitivity of the capacitive screen but whatever it is, it works brilliantly.
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I am starting to feel this now, too. So I am shifting mental gears in my head.
Copy and paste could potentially have been a pain with a capacitive screen but the Hero has a trackball which gets the job done quite well.
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This is actually where I have the most problems.... way more than touching the screen, which I am becoming accustomed to, and now seeing what p[eople are saying about feathertouch responsiveness.
I have not been able to find any settings for trackball responsiveness, the kind you'd find on any laptop for the touchpad or mouse rate of movement -- from super fast to super slow. IS there such an adjustment?
I want to love the trackball, and I am getting better at it. But to me, this is almost just the opposite of featherweight touch on screen. My finger "wants" a more "sticky" or locked-on connection to the trackball, so i can control it better with micro-movements. For me, right now, it is so slippery as to super-slide way out of range, and shifting fields on form data entry, and , when I am using it on a slider bar such as for volume control or color mixing (chnaging color of a background), it's sensitivity is way too wild for even a light touch attempt to control it
QUESTION: I am not yet using any rooted rom from XDA... I am still experiencing the Hero out of the box. So, are there any added control settings that people at XDA have figured out and added to the custom ROMS?
thank you
I agree that multi-touch is nice to have but not critical. It is the sensitivity of the capacitive screen that really makes my day ![/QUOTE]
peterc10 said:
And scrolling long lists (I have over 200 contacts) is so easy. Just flick and let it run and then stop it with a finger.
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I a starting to feel this now. I was flicking too hard initially -- as part of my learning curve. I am now getting the hang of it and am getting the kind of control you speak of. nice!
it always amazes me the number of different high-end phones HTC makes.
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No ****. what an amazing company... and why I like how XDA-developers built up around HTC... This is a serious question: Is HTC a good stock buy? They seem like moreso than ever, with their new branding and direct-to-consumer marketing campaigns (at least in the USA, big time), ready to leap out as a huge brand in the way Samsung shot up from obscurity many years ago, into a top-5 leading brand of electrionics.
Hi all.
A question for those who have the device. Is the touchscreen unresponsive or lag?
As you can see in this video there is a lot of lag, and even that the touchscreen dosent notice he swiping the glass.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaDu4YeKF4Q&feature=player_embedded
Is this a bug on pre-shipped prime or is it for everyone.
Sorry for bad english.
Best regards.
crimar89 said:
Hi all.
A question for those who have the device. Is the touchscreen unresponsive or lag?
As you can see in this video there is a lot of lag, and even that the touchscreen dosent notice he swiping the glass.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaDu4YeKF4Q&feature=player_embedded
Is this a bug on pre-shipped prime or is it for everyone.
Sorry for bad english.
Best regards.
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Click to collapse
No, this guy just doesn't know how to use a touch screen. He is touching it very strange, from an angle which is not normally used. Could also be that his finger tips just aren't very sensitive to any touchscreen.
This is btw the only video I found where the screen isn't responding like it should.
top comment with 32 thumbs:
why are you tapping so lightly?
blaziner18 said:
top comment with 32 thumbs:
why are you tapping so lightly?
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And this, with the strange angle and the light tapping the screen doesn't work sometimes.
Thanks for clearing this up guys!
I have a friend that gets dry skin in the cooler months and has to put lotion on his hands or he cannot use his touchscreed phone.
Its pretty responsive especially on Normal mode, fastest android tablet i have ever played with, it looks even more responsive than the ipad2. As for press not registering, it has more to do with HC than the tablet itself, for example pressing the x button on the task switcher sometimes doesnt respond, and you have to press the space in between.
it does not respond to girly touches is the best way to describe it.. its not a flower its a power house ready to rumble
MrGiggles said:
it does not respond to girly touches is the best way to describe it.. its not a flower its a power house ready to rumble
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I'd agree with this...it definitely takes a more deliberate press than my DX, but I'm used to it now.
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using xda premium
Which, by the way, is a welcome contrast to the Kindle Fire which seems to pick up even the lightest touch and that makes it less usable.
I picked up my Prime last night and that's the first thing that I noticed - I have to press harder on the Prime than on my phone (Evo 4g) in order for it to register. Was having a lot of trouble with the stock honeycomb keyboard. It was getting frustrating and I was worried it was an issue with my device. I switched to Swype and it was much better.
I've noticed that I don't have problems with swiping screens. The big problem is button presses. Hopefully it is really just a Honeycomb issue.
I'm somewhat new to Android, but it looks to me like which keyboard you use is an option (Samsung, Swype) and that more can potentially be added on.
The only problem I have with Samsung's is that it's clearly designed for devices with smaller screens, and takes up a MASSIVE amount of space in landscape mode. Are there any good alternatives that anyone uses?
I got Swiftkey X when it was 10c in the market sale and it is excellent on the 5 inch screen.
I was going to look at Thumb Keyboard from Beansoft since it has a custom keyboard for the 5" screen. Anyone using that one?
Mrktmind said:
I was going to look at Thumb Keyboard from Beansoft since it has a custom keyboard for the 5" screen. Anyone using that one?
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yes, i've used. I've got it for free from amazon store (free app a day). It's perfect for 5'' screen
I recommend A.I.type
A.I.type is accurate, fully customizable and has the best text prediction in the Market.
You can't beat Swype from my perspective. Just so much faster than traditional typing.
SmartKeyboard Pro.
Hey folks!
I use my tab for uni note taking and all that stuff, and just wondering, how good is the official XTS keyboard case? How well can you touch type on it? I have/had a kensington multi-angle key folio keyboard case and it failed on me
Thanks!
I have just got the tablet keyboard. So far I haven't got it to work.
It seems to have a loose connection as it was charging from it earlier (although that is also broken now). Not sure if completely broken, but it seems not to be the best quality case...
Of course I might just have been unlucky.
Edit: You have to really click in the keyboard, almost force it. That's why there was a loose connection.
It is very easy to type with (once connected). Very happy now. I have not found it too sensitive, and it is MUCH better than using a touchscreen keyboard.
Only quirk is that the screen must be at a steep angle (otherwise it will cover the keyboard). This gives it a feel more like a laptop. This maybe isn't a bad thing, although makes using the touchscreen a little uncomfortable. Personal preference here I guess.
I would recommend it for someone who will be doing a lot of typing
Fallon9111 said:
I have just got the tablet keyboard. So far I haven't got it to work.
It seems to have a loose connection as it was charging from it earlier (although that is also broken now). Not sure if completely broken, but it seems not to be the best quality case...
Of course I might just have been unlucky.
Edit: You have to really click in the keyboard, almost force it. That's why there was a loose connection.
It is very easy to type with (once connected). Very happy now. I have not found it too sensitive, and it is MUCH better than using a touchscreen keyboard.
Only quirk is that the screen must be at a steep angle (otherwise it will cover the keyboard). This gives it a feel more like a laptop. This maybe isn't a bad thing, although makes using the touchscreen a little uncomfortable. Personal preference here I guess.
I would recommend it for someone who will be doing a lot of typing
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Thanks!
I actually bought it a week ago and have it right here on the table, and I must say that I was pleasantly surprised at how well I could type on something that barely had any tactile feedback
i heard once from one of my friend's that its not working every where!
for instance,i heard you cant use in games!