How's the transition to a touch screen phone?

[vi edit]

I'm in the market for a new phone under Verizon and am intrigued by the LG Dare. It's got a great camera and the icons you can customize on the base screen are nice.

But my question is, after using "button" based phones for the better part of 15 years, how easy is the transition to "buttonless" phones?

I'm worried that I'm going to find basic things like entering non-contact based numbers and scrolling through contact lists will be a lot more cumbersome and frustrating.

Care to shed any light on your transition experience? Glad you did? Wish you hadn't? Indifferent?

 

[bigrash]

After using touchscreen phones for over 2 years now, I don't think that I could ever go back to button phones. Being a gadget geek, the transition was very easy for me at first, but if you're old fashioned and don't like to deal with new technology, it might take you a little of getting used to.

My gf has the Dare, and it's not a bad phone. I think it's a very basic touchscreen phone for a beginner.

 

[darkrisen2003]

Finally got my storm on saturday and am loving it. Now that I see what all a smartphone can do I cant imagine myself ever going back to a normal phone.

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: bigrash
After using touchscreen phones for over 2 years now, I don't think that I could ever go back to button phones. Being a gadget geek, the transition was very easy for me at first, but if you're old fashioned and don't like to deal with new technology, it might take you a little of getting used to.

My gf has the Dare, and it's not a bad phone. I think it's a very basic touchscreen phone for a beginner.

I'm assuming you are on an Iphone, no? From what I've read about the Dare is that it's touchscreen is far inferior to the Apple product. Scrolling is virtually impossible. But that was from a very critical review site.

Is navigation and basic use really as awkward and frustrating as some online reviews suggest? It's hard to really get a good feel for things just messing around in the store for a few minutes.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

I have one.

I still like button phones over touch screens. Button phones are faster, so much more efficient, and don't get your screen all muddied up. However, the Dare is fine. It does everything it does well.

 

[Deeko]

I have the G1 - it was an easy transition for me. It has a full keyboard, and a trackball for navigation similar to a blackberry, on top of a very good touch screen interface. I would hate a fully touch screen interface, personally.

 

[Cobalt]

Aside from the very steep learning curve to texting on my iPhone 3G, I love it and and can never imagine using anything else. I like my Blackberry Bold a lot but can't see it replacing my iPhone.

 

[shortylickens]

I made the transition quite easily.

I cant even see how this would be a problem unless the touchscreen itself was bad.
The newer LG's dont seem to have any issues.
I tried a Vu with AT&T and it was alright but lacked some functions.

Got myself a Voyager instead. Thats the best of both worlds.

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: shortylickens
I made the transition quite easily.

I cant even see how this would be a problem unless the touchscreen itself was bad.

It's sort of like going from a mouse to a touch pad. There's a lot of things I can do with a touchpad on a laptop, but when it comes to some things like gaming or doodling in notepad I can't. Even with practice.

Without spending $150 on a new phone I'm simply asking how well basic phone navigation would be without a conventional button based interface.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Originally posted by: vi edit

Originally posted by: shortylickens
I made the transition quite easily.

I cant even see how this would be a problem unless the touchscreen itself was bad.

It's sort of like going from a mouse to a touch pad. There's a lot of things I can do with a touchpad on a laptop, but when it comes to some things like gaming or doodling in notepad I can't. Even with practice.

Without spending $150 on a new phone I'm simply asking how well basic phone navigation would be without a conventional button based interface.

Basic phone navigation is alot faster with touch screen obviously, and the Dare has a good interface.

Though I find that dialing a number, text messaging, anything that requires keystrokes is the most aggravating thing I have ever experianced

 

[shortylickens]

Originally posted by: vi edit

Originally posted by: shortylickens
I made the transition quite easily.

I cant even see how this would be a problem unless the touchscreen itself was bad.

It's sort of like going from a mouse to a touch pad. There's a lot of things I can do with a touchpad on a laptop, but when it comes to some things like gaming or doodling in notepad I can't. Even with practice.

Without spending $150 on a new phone I'm simply asking how well basic phone navigation would be without a conventional button based interface.

On the new LG's its pretty darn easy, even if the carrier (like Verizon) insists on using their interface.
The Vu was great, texting was especially easy. Navigating around the menus and using advanced features was never a problem for me.
See my review and pics: http://forums.anandtech.com/me...ight_key=y&keyword1=Vu

The Voyager is even better because its like a cross between the Env2 and the Vu. You got a nice big outside touchscreen that works well, and a full keypad and menu buttons on the inside.

Between AT&T and Verizon I actually like the AT&T interface a little better. But Verizons menu system is not a deal-breaker. Just less than ideal.

 

[JDub02]

My wife has the Dare. She loves it. I've been allowed to mess around with it a few times and found that it was fairly easy to use even with my fat fingers.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

how about something with a touchscreen and slide out keyboard??

 

[QueBert]

Originally posted by: vi edit

Originally posted by: bigrash
After using touchscreen phones for over 2 years now, I don't think that I could ever go back to button phones. Being a gadget geek, the transition was very easy for me at first, but if you're old fashioned and don't like to deal with new technology, it might take you a little of getting used to.

My gf has the Dare, and it's not a bad phone. I think it's a very basic touchscreen phone for a beginner.

I'm assuming you are on an Iphone, no? From what I've read about the Dare is that it's touchscreen is far inferior to the Apple product. Scrolling is virtually impossible. But that was from a very critical review site.

Is navigation and basic use really as awkward and frustrating as some online reviews suggest? It's hard to really get a good feel for things just messing around in the store for a few minutes.

GF has a Dare, I have a Touch which is basically an iPhone. The Dare is pretty nice, the UI is kind of crappy and I find it to be a bit clunky speed wise. It took me a little while to get use to it, but it's not bad at all. It's definitely not as responsive as an iPhone but you're not waiting forever for menus to come up either.

Scrolls specifically on it isn't that bad, it's a tad bit slow and seems sensitive (maybe there's a setting for sensitivity I dunno) but you get use to it.

 

[vi edit]

Well, I did end up grabbing the Dare. Pretty cool phone. Contact list navigation is actually a lot better than I had anticipated. Although it's no where as easy to just hit a letter key to jump to that letter grouping like I could on a button phone, the scroll is very easy.

I'm actually finding that a lot of stuff is easier to do with just my thumb than I could do on the old phone.

So far the only thing that really is annoying me is I find the "back" arrow in the top left damn near impossible to hit.