Gallery: The Real Symbian^3 Portrait QWERTY keyboard demoed on the Nokia N8
As promised alex68 has updated us on tips@mynokiablog.com about the portrait QWERTY of the Nokia N8. This is the real one (mid development perhaps) and NOT the 3rd party QWERTY keyboard that we saw the other day.
Here’s the standard T9. Note how the text field is no longer separate. You can see exactly the app you’re typing in without being whisked away into a separate text box.
The T9 on a touch screen has often been criticised as being outdated – but I think T9 is a great option to have. Folks can still type with one hand very easily like their own candybar T9 handsets. It helps if you have big hands. Some folk just prefer typing with T9. It’s good to have the option there – but even better were the QWERTY portait given also as an immediate option.
Well let’s quickly pop into settings: See QWERTY keyboard. Not bad – immediately visible without having to dig around the menu.
And Voila. The portrait QWERTY for Symbian^3. Typing very responsive. Not sure about multitouch support. Not such a requirement when in portrait as you’ll be one handed.
The portrait QWERTY should mean future portrait QWERTY for Swype – for me, that’s what swype is made for. One handed thumb swyping. Portrait is ok but possibly not as convenient as a single thumb drag.
Note: This is NOT an English QWERTY keyboard. I don’t know how the button placements would appear were there to be fewer letters. Perhaps they would be not directly aligned and offset like a proper qwerty?
Numbers Button:
What do you think? What do you like about it? What could be improved?
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Hey, thanks for reading my post. My name is Jay and I'm a medical student at the University of Manchester. When I can, I blog here at mynokiablog.com and tweet now and again @jaymontano. We also have a twitter and facebook accounts @mynokiablog and facebook.com/MyNokiaBlog. Contact us at tips(@)mynokiablog.com or email me directly on jay[at]mynokiablog.comSubscribe
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Sites That Link to this Post
- Portrait QWERTY For Nokia N8 Leaked coming to you in Next FW update | LoveMyNokia.com | October 31, 2010
- La nuova tastiera QWERTY ufficiale per Symbian^3 appare in alcune immagini | October 31, 2010
- New Portrait QWERTY Keyboard For The Nokia N8 Coming Soon | October 31, 2010
- Video: Symbian^3 Draggable Homescreen, Portrait QWERTY keyboard and New Browser on the Nokia N8 | My Nokia Blog | November 8, 2010
Very nice, can’t wait for it, and the new browser! Symbian keeps rocking!!!
i like! ^^
btw. the letters ö ä ü are used in German and i think Scandinavian languages.
the “extra” letters you see on the pic are ö ä å, which are used in scandinavia
The touch buttons are very small, I would guess there would be difficulty for bigger thumbs. Placement is also not that good, they should have made it similar in size with the 3rd party app portrait qwerty keyboard posted the other day.
In Chinese, they use pin yin system (for pronounciation) that needs less chars. The keyboard in this demo for Scandinavian language in which there are a few extra chars.
Again Chinese version is simplified and special characters are missing. When you use it, you will know its problems.
Is the SMS marking has updated ? like which is there in email inbox mark several..
Yes, it has mark all function to mark multiple entries of sms.
better than none
i really like the baidu input layout, but it is sometime annoying, you need to chnage it to eng from chi in many case
I think they need to bring back the original layout of keyboard in Numbers. Just the layout only to use numbers with a switch perhaps to active the T9 alongside.
This way users can easily decode numbers call 111-kfc-kfc or 92sample if you get the idea. I missed this in new qwerty keyboards and look for regular sets to find the numbers. Also this way the number keys are larger than what is shown in these examples.
Thanks a lot Alex!
And holy cramped Batman! you’ll need a stylus to type on that. Perhaps Nokia’s 16:9 ratio is not very good for touch phones, it’s great for ergonomics but for the UI it does not seem optimal.
Yeah it is quite narrow. Especially with those extra keys (the baidu one didn’t look this cramped).
We’ll have to wait it out and see how accurately we can press it.
It should help loads when you have the 4″ E7 but I’m going to be on that Physical Keyboard and not on touch :p. I see it being a problem on the C6-01 where the screen is 3.2″
Nokia has to change the keyboard layout now! I hate how the QAZ are lined straight. That’s not how it should be. I hate saying it but it’s true, iPhone has the best on screen keyboard I’ve ever seen on a phone. The keys are perfectly laid-out, it supports multitouch, the keys are big enough, and the number system is great! I hate how the numbers are placed on these virual Nokia keyboards. They should’ve put them all in one row like iPhone/Android keyboard.
N8 has a pretty good keyboard TBH, but it needs to be redone coz the competition has a much better onscreen keyboard. And I heard that WP7 also has a great keyboard which is just as good as the iPhone’s.
Hopefully, Nokia will change that in symbian phones sometime in future soon and I REALLY hope that MeeGo’s onscreen keyboard will be laid out properly
Change the layout should not be a big deal, in my opinion just a piece of cake. Now the portrait qwerty is leaked. People just comment on what you like and what you do NOT like. I DO hope Nokia engineers especially product managers who usually weigh on the decision what should be done can see these comments and take into consideration.
Now Nokia is in a critical point. They should learn to be very humble to listen to its customers and learn from its rivals.
Received my N8 on Friday & its miles better then my n97
Cant wait for this qwerty to be released though
Some apps havnt been ported to S3 yet
my favourite skype, nokia internet radio have not been ported to s3:(
i want to see official procts
yahoo im
yahoo flickr
msn live im which has been removed from ovi store for unknown reason, ipohne app store still keep it
official twitter
google maps with multitouch
livestation, tvuplayer
spb radio
vlc player, coreplayer, mplayer
and other nice world class mobile games
I see no sense for google maps with multitouch by nokia at all as it uses the service from a competitor to Nokia´s navteq. Third party app is a different story.
it will be our users’ honour to get portrait QWERTY keypad. This is the place for the swype function ,if not why they wanna install swype in? Dont forget the main purpose of swype. hahahaha! well done nokia !
I would love to see vlc media player and gtalk…
everyone uses these softwares.
I feel the need for snes emulator
drnoksnes for symbian3? Anyone?
i’d rather a nes one – with support for usb/bt gamepads
How do we contact yahoo, google to ask for their apps?
A month ago , i sent my feedback to livestation, they replied with unsatisfied answer,
Most of the apps you guys are wanting are likely under work in some third party software houses. Remember there is NOKIA & ATT’ 10M competition reward (due by early next Jan) for software developers for the USA market.
I am sure we will see some really nice apps just after a few months ahead.
Actually it is single-touch keyboard. If you use two hands to type, the tight layout should not be an issue in my opinion. In my demo, i can not do it.
ALEX68 , is is there no MT implemented here? i always use 2 fingers for t9….
Depends on the word multi-touch meaning.
If considers multi-touch is one hand finger swiping on the keyboard, another hand singer typing on the pop-up char, yes, it is multi-touch. N8 works exactly the way apples works according to my experience.
But it doesn’t pop up multi-chars, this is the multi-touch I am talking about. I checked Youtube and find it out the multi-char pop-up.
Alex, this is multitouch…
You tap and hold down any key, and try tapping other keys, if they work(type), it’s multitouch, if nothing gets typed then it is not multitouch.
I can barely see and hear (sorry for my poor hearing and eyesight) very clearly from this video. Can anybody give me more descriptive video for multi-touch? Better comparison of single and multi touch? I am a bit busy now and back later.
Man, that QWERTY looks like utter crap. Waaaay to cramped, and the Q and A straight underneath each other doesn’t look like it works very nice.
will be easier to put in.
A lot is perhaps due to the ä and ö’s so maybe normal languages
Still, there is a saying, better stolen than poorly conceived. In this case I thnik Nokia should just look at Android and iPhone to see what works. I mean; a QWERTY layout can’t be patented, or can it?
Depends…
You known Nokia patented unlock phone using a combination of keys for feature phones (about year 1999, I had a training for our software patent). The idea was inspired by MS set key combination(ctrl + alt+ del) for PC.
Alex, that is a good example about “Multitoouch” you asked before. Press more than 1 key, for get something else.. Another example.. “Shift + Letter” for capitalize that entry..
alex,bro i m not talking abt tht mark all msgs option…is there any option for marking individual sms just as there in email or in the galary to select photos to delete …
the mark all option actually enables the check boxe for all messages and you can just select as many as possible. It works the same way as email you mentioned.
Are you kidding me with that?? That looks nothing like a QWERTY should. My God, tell the people at Nokia to suck up their pride and design one that has the same layout as everyone else.
Hope this comes soon!
Simple solution, just copy the keyboard from the E71/E72 in software. Some minor tweaks and done. Why reinvent the wheel?
alex,thanks for the clarification
n8 for the win \m/
Sorry, it was my mistake. The option was called mark multiple items, confused with hotmail option.
how do u do this, i really want it the T9 is annoying.
I don’t find how u guys get this to work on use version. The keyboard options does not come up under settings. Someone needs to correct what u are talking about.
After I practiced more typing on the portrait qwerty keyboard, I somehow get the design idea how it works. It is not a SIMPLE single touch screen. It is still designed for single handed people or usage. You can just swipe quickly with your thumb on the screen keyboard and char pops up to hint what you hit and release your thumb a bit when you hit the char you want. That’s why numbers are designed like the num pad in computer keyboard.
Layout of the keyboard seems not an issue or quiet irrelevant here.
It needs a little practice and surely it is a fast way to type with one hand. I believe some people will like it.
Believe it or not. Time will tell.
do you have any idea when the language pack codes will be provided for the n8? btw how’s ur n8 doing? mine just restarted 4 times in a day due to intensive multitasking and multiple commands. and what about the screws on each side of the phone? they went from white to black just in a few days
… i hope they will not get rust stains. (anodized aluminum casing and still they go cheap on the screws? can’t believe it!)
No idea about language packs, maybe early next year. I can ask some one if I have a chance.
The screw is different material. In my phone, they are dark color as well. But don’t think they will get rusty.
Have you downloaded recent software update for stability improvements? It should help.
My N8 has been working very well. Nothing specially bad. Opera crashes sometimes and some small issues. I consider rather acceptable and satisfactory.
I have a new win7 HP mini laptop. The chrome browser crashes now and than. The network sometimes stops working with both cable and wireless connection that I have to reboot. I consider all these “NORMAL”.
I have been working in IT industry for a considerably long time. There is no REALLY perfect product.
Of course, the problems should be fixed at some point if not so soon. I can live with the problems before solutions are available. This is my point.
I today sent my N8 to nokia care. It got automatically shutdown and never revived. previously it was revived in 20 minutes first time and another time it took almost 3 hours anda i had frequent shutdowns as well, could this be isolated problem
you’r right about the normality of the n8′s behavior. i do agree that all of us experienced different types of crashing softwares from mobile phones to pc’s.
i was worried that it’s abnormal. but looking from this point of view… nothing is perfect.
and about those pack codes for me is a real biggie. having thick fingers, the only solution would be the t9 keyboard. but there’s no language support for my area. hopefully i won’t have to wait too long for it.
Alex, which country are you from? Today I asked my friend about it. The answer is if it is not released with the language now, it is unlikely to support the language later. Nokia has plan to reduce the language variants for phones. But when I told it is Romania and the answer was it should be supported as it is not a small country.
btw, multitask behavior will change in the coming major release. Nokia DOES need to do a lot polish work to make Symbian more SMARTLY capable.
Please elaborate on the multitasking?
Exactly what will change??
Some apps may be able to pause themselves and others may save state maybe?
And others can freely run in the b-ground
i’m from Romania but my n8 ain’t… the supported languages on my handset are English Indonesian Melayu and… some strange characters i guess it’s Chinese. i know that i can change my language pack but the thing is i don’t have the right code nor the right re-flash software. this is why i’m asking for infos and help