1. #1
    D.Dark
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    Top 10 Reasons Why Touchscreens Suck.

    1. You can't use a touchscreen phone one handed very easily. Yes, you can stab at things with the side of your thumb, but to do anything meaningful you've got to hold the phone in one hand and stab at it with the other.

    Button-driven phones can be used in their entirety with one hand and using just your thumb. Leaving one hand free for shopping, or for a child's hand, or for a tube strap, or for a briefcase.

    2. You can't use a touchscreen phone without looking. With no physical buttons to press, trying to do something even as simply as hanging up a phone call becomes a distracting experience.

    In contrast, common operations can be done sight-unseen on a button-driven phone. Some youngsters have even been known to send text messages while the device was still in their pocket (beyond my T9 skills, but....)

    3. Touchscreen phones get dirtier. Or at least the dirt is far more obvious. Spoiling the acres of glossy glass or plastic with a dozen greasy fingerprints.

    Whereas the screen of a button-driven phone stays nice and clear. In practice, you'll hardly ever touch it. Even when picking the phone up. Which leads me nicely to....

    4. It's hard to pick up a touchscreen phone. Unless you had the foresight to lock the screen, you've got to be careful not to let a millimetre of your skin touch the display, else it'll get interpreted as a screen tap or swipe and before you know it you've launched something or closed something else down or worse. The same applies to touch-sensitive spots on the main case, by the way, making picking up your phone a somewhat delicate affair - and far more prone to dropping.

    In contrast, you can pick up a button-driven phone however you like. The chances of a rogue contact happening to depress a physical key sufficiently are very slim indeed. And of course, it doesn't matter one iota if you touch the screen accidentally. Talking of drops and accidents, brings me nicely to...

    5. Touchscreen phones are, by their very nature, less robust - however strong the tempered glass front, drop the phone onto concrete from arm height and the chances are good that the screen will crack. Exit one expensive smartphone. And those without tempered glass (e.g. the Nokia resistive touch phones) are just ridiculously fragile and far too easy to scratch with a coin or key by accident - running your finger over a scratched touchscreen is very, very annoying [as I know to my cost, having lent my N97 to a less than careful reviewer]

    No such worries with a button-driven phone, as these tend to be far more durable. Even if the screen gets bashed, the worst that usually happens is a scratch or two. Mere battle scars. There are legendary tales of survivability in the All About Symbian camp for devices like the Nokia N82, E71 and N95, for example. And unlike touch-driven phones, a few scratches on the screen are hardly noticed since you're not interacting directly with it.

    6. Touchscreen-driven phones aren't usually so hot for music and podcast playback, in that controlling the playback requires a number of taps to get back to the playing interface. Admittedly, well designed UIs can make this slightly easier, the iPhone OS has its music player by default on the bottom of each app screen, but you've still got to exit the current app to get to this; while Android phones can have a playback widget on one of their many homescreens and some even put playback controls in the swipe-down notifications pane. But it's never trivial to change tracks or fast forward a podcast, for example.

    In contrast, a number of popular button-driven phones (e.g. Nokia N95, N96, N86, 5730 and others) have hardware playback controls that can be applied whatever else is currently up in the foreground. So, for example, you can be reading your email and decide to pause the podcast that's playing or to skip a music track. One keypress and you're done - on the N96 there are even duplicate media playback buttons so that you can do this whether the upper or lower slide is open. Now that's control.


    7. Touchscreen phones are clumsy at playing 'digital' games, where specific direction inputs are needed. Whether a first person shooter or a platform arcade game, a physical d-pad can't really be beaten. In fairness, there are also games where an analogue or 'pointer' system is needed and a touch interface works best for these. An ideal device should therefore have both? 8-)

    8. Touchscreen phones are a menace to use while driving. Yes, yes, you're going to say that I shouldn't be using ANY phone while driving. What I mean is that, with my smartphone in a cradle on the dashboard, perhaps giving route guidance or playing back an audio file, trying to interact with it briefly while driving is difficult if everything's touch-based. You end up stabbing hopefully at roughly the right spot on the screen while taking your eyes off the road for a micro-second. And, invariably, because the car's vibrating up and down as you roll over potholes etc, you end up hitting something you didn't mean to and then spend the next few taps trying to undo what you just did. Working with a capacitive touchscreen is even worse, the slightest touch in the wrong place as your hand gets jogged out of position and you're in a world of hassle.

    In contrast, on a button-driven phone, you know exactly what you want to do in terms of (for example) 'left fn key', 'd-pad in', or whatever and can do it without really looking at all - and the physical nature of the keys mean that it's almost impossible to depress them accidentally, even if you get jogged by the car's motion.

    9. Touchscreen phones are slower to input text on. Generally. Honourable exceptions go, possibly, the the excellent iPhone keyboard and text auto-correction, which seems to forgive almost any mistyping, and also to some of the larger-screened touch devices. But anything with virtual qwerty or virtual keypad input on a 3.2" screen or smaller is a joke in terms of typing.

    Typing on a physical qwerty keyboard or even a numeric (predictive/T9) keypad is usually a lot faster, both in terms of hitting the keys you wanted to hit and in terms of haptic feedback that each keypress was successful. And physical qwerty keyboards reign supreme if you have to input many names or passwords or anything with serious amounts of punctuation.

    10. Touchscreen phones have, by their very nature, to be physically larger (to be any good). We've seen 3.7", 4" and now 4.3" touchscreens on the market. Many of them already look like slabs held up against people's faces. And have to be pocketed extra carefully. And probably need to be in a case most of the time, which makes them even larger.

    Meanwhile, button-driven phones only require a display that's large enough to see what's going on. There's no requirement for things to be large enough to single out with a finger-tip. The result is a form factor which can be dramatically smaller. As an example, compare the Nokia N86 with the HTC HD2 or Samsung Galaxy S. One's a phone - the others, if we're honest, are more 'tablets'. Don't we all want something that's small enough to fit in any pocket and to be unobtrusive when out and about?

    allaboutsymbian.com/featu...reens_Suck.php


    See More: Top 10 Reasons Why Touchscreens Suck.




  2. #2
    chaloriy
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    Re: Top 10 Reasons Why Touchscreens Suck.

    Urr...buddy,seems reasonable,but i never have a touchscreen phone so far.
    After reading this, i should consider twice



  3. #3
    Hachiko
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    Re: Top 10 Reasons Why Touchscreens Suck.

    Well I agree to most part. But touchscreen phones are easier to navigate and of course very nice to look at. In general, I would like a phone with a standard keyboard (not QWERTY) for texting and touchscreen for everything else



  4. #4
    D.Dark
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    Re: Top 10 Reasons Why Touchscreens Suck.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hachiko View Post
    I would like a phone with a standard keyboard (not QWERTY) for texting and touchscreen for everything else
    +1 to that. Still I strongly recommend you play with different touchscreen phones couple of times first just to see if you will like it or not (its just like riding a bike ). At first I'm was not used to using TS phone and it took me some time to learn and get comfy on using one ...
    Last edited by D.Dark; 07-12-2010 at 06:57 PM.



  5. #5
    newboyz
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    Re: Top 10 Reasons Why Touchscreens Suck.

    touchscreens are very good for playing games



  6. #6
    Brown Ninja
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    Re: Top 10 Reasons Why Touchscreens Suck.

    While I mostly agree, this is my dilemma so far, I've used the iphone and like it a lot, along with all the features, however I still prefer a physical keyboard and the convenience of texting with just my thumb.



  7. #7
    solarsailer
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    Re: Top 10 Reasons Why Touchscreens Suck.

    I agree to most part. but it's very good for playing games



  8. #8
    saboteur99
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    Re: Top 10 Reasons Why Touchscreens Suck.

    I cannot agree with you more !
    I hope all this touchscreen thing is just a fad and soon people realize that it is not very effective.
    After having an N97 , (and looking really really well to other touchscreen phones like N8, SamsungS, iphone, etc) I have finally decided to buy ANOTHER NOKIA N95-8GB on amazon.
    THAT WAS (and is) A KICK A++ PHONE.
    I had so many emulators, programs, and apps installed in my elder one (which i have started using again) that cannot be run with a touchscreen technology.
    Now I realize what an exceptional phone it was, and hope that cell phone manufacturers realize this too.

    Touchscreen sucks, really, really sucks. All the reasons you listed are completely true.

    ---------- Post added at 08:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:08 PM ----------

    Oh... and for the people who think that touchscreens game are "good" , I can see that you never tried emulators of nintendo, sega genesys, master system and many other consoles.
    They worked perfectly on good old fashioned slider phones, which are impossible to run on touchscreen.

    ---------- Post added at 08:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:10 PM ----------

    amen to that



  9. #9
    Hachiko
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    Re: Top 10 Reasons Why Touchscreens Suck.

    Quote Originally Posted by D.Dark View Post
    +1 to that. Still I strongly recommend you play with different touchscreen phones couple of times first just to see if you will like it or not (its just like riding a bike ). At first I'm was not used to using TS phone and it took me some time to learn and get comfy on using one ...
    I have, I actually have owned several TS phones and the latest one I got was the Galaxy S I bought from timtechs and my next one just might be the HTC 7 Trophy since I am very curious about the Windows7 platform.



  10. #10
    shirlypeng
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    Re: Top 10 Reasons Why Touchscreens Suck.

    My friend's LG touchscreen was wrong after buying for three months. She did not broke it but for some unknown reason.



  11. #11
    Princesa
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    Re: Top 10 Reasons Why Touchscreens Suck.

    I don't mind a touch screen,yeah texting can be slower on it but once you get used to it its not a big deal to me personally.
    MexiRicanNative...Princesa!! I'm a spicy mix! lol

    "Si vas a hacer algo,hazlo con estilo"



  12. #12
    D.Dark
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    Re: Top 10 Reasons Why Touchscreens Suck.

    Touchscreen with QWERTY keyboard is usually bulky



  13. #13
    greatbit
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    Re: Top 10 Reasons Why Touchscreens Suck.

    I like Touchscreens personally, but there are reasonable assertions. In the end it comes down to personal preference. Also Touchscreens have an easier time with multimedia.



  14. #14
    Pixel Pariah
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    Re: Top 10 Reasons Why Touchscreens Suck.

    11. Touch screens break (and I don't mean a cracked screen), often for apparently no reason. Whether it was a gradual wearing down of the response mechanism or an accumulation of dust or dirt or moisture,
    I've had two touch screen phones and with both of them the screens eventually stopped working all together. Making an apparently internally functioning phone, now useless, You NEVER have to deal with this button driven phones.

    I'll never buy a touch screen phone again.



  15. #15
    David A Sawyer
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    Re: Top 10 Reasons Why Touchscreens Suck.

    I finally got a tablet and a touch screen LG phone with Android. They both suck. I don't blame the touch screen but rather the terrible programming. I sold the tablet to a local Pawn shop who said that he's up to his eyeballs in tablets and can't get rid of them... and most people buy accessories that turn them back into lap tops to begin with (so why not just buy a lap top). The touch screen phones are annoying because many settings that should be intuitive are hidden or vague, or ambiguous, it's too easy to the wrong buttons, etc etc etc... HOWEVER back in the early 2000's I used to own a View Sonic Pocket PC in which I could do internet phone calls. I could use a stylus or my finger. It used the old Windows OS, full color screen, video camera, even had inferred, etc etc etc. Though back then peoples still thought hand held devices were nothing more than the monochrome PDA of the 1990s. But seriously back in 2003 pocket computers like the View Sonic were awesome... Now that Im using the crazy OS out there like Windows Android Jellybean etc I have noticed they are horrible. The way they have everything set to swipe scroll and hide settings or make it hard simply to answer your phone is sick. Heck I can press and swipe the answer circle several times before I can answer my phone. So basically I blame how asinine computer programming as become.. Also this weird obsession with scrolling, swiping, and what ever they try to force us to do... with the old OS on my ViewSonic I could simply click Start, click on the program I want, badah-Bing-Badah-Bang and done. And back then they had a program that allowed you to train the screen that only took a couple simple steps (so it was accustomed to your touch). I blame the notion that this whole tile metro / swiping thing somehow looks futuristic and cool when in all reality it's cumbersome, stupid, slows us down, it's vague & ambiguous, and not very smart. What they call Smart Phones these days are anything but smart... Anyway if you can get your hands on an old ViewSonic V35 or V36 (I forget the specific model) and be able to study it, you will find that it made logical sense, was highly functional, and easy to understand... I am not trying to sell anything here nor am I saying that the older ViewSonic is compatable with today's phone plans. I am only pointing out that if you compare the two types today you'd see that it's not the touch screen that's the problem it's the stupid programming they use today. Though the whole smart phone thing is modeled after the iPhone that came out a few years ago which was a terrible rendition of the I-mode that the Japanese and Europeans had 10 years ago. Sad but true that when ever the USA creates something it's usually a rip off of someone elses tech and poorly done... Even back when they invented Windows that wasn't truly original either... Long story short it's a matter off "Poor Style Choice".



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