To Touch or Not To Touch - the Christmas 2009 edition

Still happy with my none-touch E55, and this coming from a guy who used to own plenty of Palms and Clies, and was an early adaptor of the first ever Xda model.

Surely the most cost effective, robust and simple designs will win out in the end? Take a look at the current iPhone. There are 4 moving parts. Just 4. The N86 on the other hand has in excess of 24! I guess that devices such as the N900 and N97 have even more moving parts. Is this physical complexity a good thing? I'm not so sure...

Personally I'm aiming to hold off on a touch device for as long as I can, for one simple reason -- I hate futzing with screen protectors, but wouldn't use a touch device without one...

An automobile has thousands of moving parts. What is your point?

As for robustness, 4 colleagues of mine has iPhones with cracked screens! My E51 on the other hand has been dropped plenty of times (onto hard flooring no less) and is carried in a pocket full of change and keys, and is still going strong.

In any case, I like my buttons. Touchscreen has its uses, but I am fine without them.

for me the biggest difference are the application possibilities that touch and big enough screens create in terms of extra utilities, games and web infos. Just looking and how much more I can do with the N97 now that ovi store is starting to pick up the pace.

PS: @aas: I recommend a shout out for the offscreen advent calendar available in ovi store, with one free offscreen application each day!

I must confess to having a touch-screen for play and a non-touch for work. The key factor for work is that I must be able to use it one handed (So the N97 form factor would be no use) whilst for play I can enjoy the extras that a large screen brings.

Surely "larger display" would be a pro, as well as a con?

I dont know if it is non-touch phones that are more robust, but Nokia phones usually are. I remember once, my n93 fell out of my jacket pocket while I was riding my bike. I was at a speed of around 60 KM, the phone hit the road and kept on bouncing and dragging for about 2 feet. I stopped my bike some distance away, came walking back fearing the worst, but the only thing wrong with the phone was glaringly visible scratches on the flap. EVERYTHING was working fine... 😊

@pennas: Yes, my wording was a little confusing, I've tweaked the formatting to make this clearer 8-)

We may not have a choice! All of the latest & greatest phones seem to be heading towards screen-tapping finger-friendliness. Personally I still prefer buttons as most of the "cons" mentioned in the article resonate with me, but looking around for my next phone and I am sorely disappointed with the button-options out there (n86 being the best as far as I can see). Take the two latest from Nokia - X6, has everything, would be perfect for me apart from it's a touch screen. On the other hand, the X3 looks lovely and would be perfect for me if it had the functionality of the X6. Not much going on with other manufacturers either. So I'm starting to resign myself to the fact my next phone may have to be a touch-screen.

ILG

I just upgraded my e71 to an E72 and I couldn't be more happier. For me I hate the hassle of looking at the screen to do something. With buttons I can just click the menu key, go down 4 steps with the navigation key and click to open the application folder, all without looking at the screen.

I like the flexibility of buttons, thats why I stick with my e72 for on the go mobility, calls and actual work. Then for fun and casual stuff, I got my N97 to back me up. All in all, it depends on preference and for me, its buttons all the way.

I would say (and no prizes) that touch and +3" screens are here to stay for the foreseeable because of the "killer App" on mobile devices; viewing t'internet and messages (voice being a given I guess). And although physical buttons and keyboards are nice in a lot of the circumstances you name they are also the form factor that is most sacrificable in order to trim size/weight/cost on a device whereas the screen real estate is non-negotiable in current environment, it also offers much easier "instant" flexibility from phone - GPS - Gaming etc.

However some of the benefits of physical interface surely are going to be sorely missed by not necessarily the minority. Along the lines of the much delayed but not ambitious or advanced enough Modu I would be quite surprised not to see some sort of modular phone system evolve (I think Sharp were working on one) with components such as a tiny comms unit with with the GPS and small/minimal touch screen maybe in a watch form (for jeans pockets nights) and then unit with add on keyboards, one handed texting unit ,larger touchscreen, (large)r cam, game controller etc. Or even more distributed around the body as personal network - the infamous "intelligent-wear". Of course by then we could be seeing flexible screens and gesture control................😎

@slitchfield. That picture looks too familiar. I have lost count of the amount of times I have picked up my N86 and tried to touch the screen to select something after using touch since the launch of the 5800. 😊

This proofs in some way, that touch interface is very natural way to operate interactive handheld device, I think. Definetly "to touch", but slide-out keyboard is always welcome 😉.

Though I could use my N97 one-handed, the large screen was a joy to watch movies on and I miss the fact that I could touch the UI elements I wanted to access, not being able to use a touch-screen device without looking at it was only slightly annoying but the main reason I gave up on the N97 and went back to my failing E90 was the fact that it moved too slowly.
So I guess I like touch-screen phones overall but I won't use one if I have to sacrifice speed.

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My first experience with touchscreen phone was the HTC Touch back in 2007 & subsequently followed by Samsung F480 in 2008, N5800 in Jan. 2009, iphone 3G in April 2009, 3GS in July 2009 & last but not least Satio this month.
Prior to my experience with iphone. I did not care much about touchscreen but now is a different story. The iphone brings a completely new experience to it.
I have no qualm switching from a touch to non-touch. Having said that, I do have a problem when I use two different touchscreen phone like the iphone & the Satio. Immediately you would notice how laggy the Satio UI is & so much so that at times is a real frustration to use it. IMO, the iphone touchscreen is the most responsive UI I have ever used. The Symbian S60 touchscreen still have a long way to go. I am tempted to try the N97 Mini. Can everyone tell me more about the responsivness & speed of the Mini's UI? Surely, it has to be better than the Satio. Not only the UI is slow but the software is buggy as well. Well. my Satio is now in SE service centre waiting to be rectified.
I still maintain that the iphone is still a crap phone when it comes to functionality & practicality. It has too much constraint as a phone & even a S40 phone works better in that respect.

On my work desk i usually have an mix of company and non company devices ranging from Nokia 3109c's up to HTC Diamond, Touch, Touch Pro 2, Palm Treo's, E71's, various blackberry's, and the occasional oddball device (eg; SGH- i200), Iphone's and recently a couple of N97 mini's. (i've become the designated 'phone guy' due to my sad addiction).

Several of the non-touch devices have repeated fingerprint marks on them. usually when i'm setting up a touch in one hand and a non-touch in the other. "why doesn't this screen work.....oh, duh!"

I think I'm kind of in the middle as far as touch vs non-touch. i can scoot round either quickly and easily. PROVIDED of course that the interface allows this. Some are easy, some are hard, touch/non-touch not withstanding.

But i lean more toward touch. For me its because i also lean toward having a larger screen. Like the PC World advert says "Media is my world", plus maps, and browsing. You can't have a screen that kind of size (3.5" and up) and a physical keyboard without making a big phone even bigger.

I've also got large fingers, so the E71's, Treo's, and Blackberry's are fiddly for me, i need a larger keyboard, physical or virtual. As i'm not enamoured by any of the physical large keyboard devices (the TP2 comes close though), i pick a virtual keyboard device.

Great points as usual.

I've only got one thing to point out and that is precision.
Using a D-pad is slightly more accurate in selecting things than touching it (Without a stylus).
At least that is the case when it comes to handsets made by Nokia.
Also in most occasions you have that the touch is (immediately) not recognized.
(This also is the case with the O' mighty iPhone, though I believe wiping the screen improve this).

There is in general a more "pause" before something gets done when using a touch screen as you need to wait milliseconds more.
The experience is not that smooth as when using physical buttons.

Really liked your point about controlling music, the same goes for texting messages on the go which can't be done without watching the screen on touch enabled handsets.

When it comes to form factors the N97 has the one suitable for me. A navigation button which I use frequently and a (half?) qwerty keyboard.

For me, the most ideal solution would be my E71 and n95 having touch screens. Why does it have to be one or the other?

Don't want to contradict Steve but, on the iPhone 3Gs, and I suspect many other touch devices, it is quite possible to control music, podcasts etc while in pocket by using voice commands and supplied headset with device. eg press and hold headset on microphone bulge until you hear double beep and say "play playlist Katie Melua", "shuffle", or even "Call Steve Litchfield" etc. If you have a podcast or music paused you can use the headset to unpause, jump to next track etc by clicking. On other devices I expect there are dedicated music keys on the edge of the device rather than on the headset. This needs taking off the "con" side as it is touch / non-touch agnostic.

Bill

i have N97, E72, N82, 6700, Ipod Touch, IPAQ.....so i don't have to choose whether to touch or not....Rejoice!

Got the 5800XM and then an E71 for when the 5800XM was being fixed/replaced (I'm on my third 5800XM in 5 months) and I have to say, the E71 is my phone of choice, it seems bulletproof, software and hardware-wise, the opposite of my problem-prone 5800.

I suspect that touch is better suited to dedicated media players, but if you can shoehorn it onto a media-centric phone without making a disaster of early firmware releases... Ahem! SE...? Touch is not going away any time soon, I suspect the real question is about how many hands you need to hold your phone to use its basic functions.

There will always be demand for keys and there will always be some who enjoy the large screen for play.

But there is also a middle ground, like the N97, which has more bulk...

So why not have: E55 / E72 / E75 with a touch sensitive screen?

yes the screen is still 2.4", but add touch you've got got the direct quicker access if you want. Given S60v5 is optimized so you can still fully control the O/S via keypad + 2 soft keys on the screen, i can imagine having the next E75 having a touch sensitive screen.

Have the touch screen capacitive with glass up front and it'd be just as robust

BillF wrote:Don't want to contradict Steve but, on the iPhone 3Gs, and I suspect many other touch devices, it is quite possible to control music, podcasts etc while in pocket by using voice commands and supplied headset with device. eg press and hold headset on microphone bulge until you hear double beep and say "play playlist Katie Melua", "shuffle", or even "Call Steve Litchfield" etc. If you have a podcast or music paused you can use the headset to unpause, jump to next track etc by clicking.

Great point. Actually, yes, on almost every phone you can use a play/pause/skip remote unit in the headphone lead - must dig mine out! 8-)

These new touch interfaces are very nice and in the case of the iPhone easy enough for granny to use, but the big problem is gaming.
I use my E90 for everything, including gaming. I have Quake, Doom, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance and Genesis emulators and a whole truckload of native S60 and Java games. Now, how're you going to run a GBA emulator without buttons? I've seen a lot of the iphone so called games and they seem to be universally pants, a technology demonstrator to make people go "oohhh" and "aahh" but with no real hook. I'm hacking through Colin Macrea Rally on the GBA emulator at the moment - fantastic!

phonophiliac wrote:For me, the most ideal solution would be my E71 and n95 having touch screens. Why does it have to be one or the other?

Exactly ! Thats what I've been wanting since before 5800 was launched..
My guess is touch screens require some space for their hardware, increasing the thickness of the N95 or E71..

Or maybe companies feel producing such small touch screens is unprofitable ?

yitwave wrote:There will always be demand for keys and there will always be some who enjoy the large screen for play.

But there is also a middle ground, like the N97, which has more bulk...

So why not have: E55 / E72 / E75 with a touch sensitive screen?

yes the screen is still 2.4", but add touch you've got got the direct quicker access if you want. Given S60v5 is optimized so you can still fully control the O/S via keypad + 2 soft keys on the screen, i can imagine having the next E75 having a touch sensitive screen.

Have the touch screen capacitive with glass up front and it'd be just as robust

I agree. Or design a touchscreen phone for one-handed use and I might think of leaving my lovely non-touch E51 (or E52 or whatever successors there are).

I guess designers of touchscreens have a long way to go until they provide different form factors for different needs. I will NEVER buy a phone that requires me to use two hands and I believe I'm not alone.

BillF wrote:Don't want to contradict Steve but, on the iPhone 3Gs, and I suspect many other touch devices, it is quite possible to control music, podcasts etc while in pocket by using voice commands and supplied headset with device. eg press and hold headset on microphone bulge until you hear double beep and say "play playlist Katie Melua", "shuffle", or even "Call Steve Litchfield" etc. If you have a podcast or music paused you can use the headset to unpause, jump to next track etc by clicking. On other devices I expect there are dedicated music keys on the edge of the device rather than on the headset. This needs taking off the "con" side as it is touch / non-touch agnostic.

Bill

Unfortunately this only works if you use Apple's crappy quality supplied headset. They should do what most other music phone providers do and put a 3.5 socket onto the control cable so you can use your own preferred buds/phones etc.