Virtual Keyboard

[KimberCliff]

I am currently a Droid 1 user, and am thinking of upgrading to the Droid X. The other Droid model I am interested in is the Droid 2. I use the slide out keyboard on the original Droid on a regular basis, and rarely use the virtual keyboard. In fact, when I left the Palm smartphone world in favor of the Droid, one of the reasons I chose the Droid over the Blackberry Storm was that the Storm only offered a virtual keyboard, and the Droid had the slide out keyboard. (Of course the other major thing that sold me on the Droid was the vast amount of apps available, many of them free).

My issue is this...I really like the features of the Droid X over the Droid 2, except that it has the virtual keyboard. A close family member already upgraded to the Droid X and loves it. He also told me that the virtual keyboard on the Droid X is similar in size to my slide out keyboard on the original Droid, and he thinks that if I upgrade, I won't miss the slide out keyboard at all. Also, the size of the screen alone on the Droid X is more attractive than that of the Droid 2, as well as the FM radio feature on the Droid X.

My question is this...for those of you that have upgraded from the Droid to the Droid X, how many of you miss your old slide out keyboard and regret the switch? How many of you don't miss the slide out keyboard at all? I am planning on upgrading in the next day or two, so any help or advice would be appreciated!

Thanks,

Kim

[gerio]

That's such a personal thing and really hard to advise.

I think, because of the X's size, there have been very few people not adapt to the X's virtual keyboard. You could turn out to be one of those people, who knows.

Not only do people seem to adapt to the X's virtual keyboard, but you can choose between the stock keyboard and the Swype keyboard, where you drag your finger across the letters to spell the words. I absolutely love Swype. Sure, it takes a little getting used to, but it's certainly worth the effort.

There are other keyboard variants on the app market as well that do similar things.

And as always, you can get the X and try it for 14 days and return it if it doesn't for you.

Geri O

[pool_shark]

I miss the physical keyboard of the Droid 2 only when editing word docs. Now I have to do that in portrait and I really don't like typing in portrait with two hands.

I will tell you that the screen on the DX is much brighter than that of the D2, the camera is also at least 5 times better, and finally the hard buttons takes a bit to get use to the hard buttons on the DX.

[Cody21]

ditto ... LOVE SWYPE ...   It's 95% of my key entry.

[mortb]

I have both the Droid X, which I love, and the R2D2 version of the Droid 2, which I also love. Except for the hard menu, home, etc. keys and the larger screen, there really is not that much difference between the two. On the whole, I prefer the Droid X for its larger screen and swype (which you can also do with the Droid 2 virtual keyboard).

[vereyezuhn]

I personally find it faster and easier to just use the virtual keyboard over Swype. For some reason it never gets the correct word at first for me. I came from an EnV3, and I never used the QWERTY keyboard. I actually didn't like it. But the virtual keyboard on the X is very nice, and if you get the hang of Swype I'm sure that's a lot better too.

[dirkbonn]

My last two phones have had virtual keyboards.  But the Droid X keybord was realy easy to get used to because of it's larger size compared to my last phone which was smaller. (weren't they all?)

My next phone will be an LTE phone but that'll be awhile cuz i'm not due for an upgrade until 3/12. Until then my Droid X will be my phone of choice..... And when I do get an LTE phone, it'll be something similar to my X but will be 4G capable.

[Runestyr · Accepted solution]

The best thing to do is go to the store and spend several minutes playing with each of  the models you're considering.  We can share our experiences but touch-screen utility is a very personal thing.  Everyone's hands, fingers, and patience levels are different. 

My experience?  This is my first smart phone.  I have size 9 hands with thin fingers.  I can 10-finger type pretty well on a real keyboard.  Therefore with my fingers and patience level, I found the smaller touch screens' keyboards (iPhone and Pixi) and even the Blackberry's hard keyboard to be unusable -- they'd read more keys wrong than right.  The Droid X's virtual keyboard is only slightly bigger, but if you turn it sideways it expands to be about as big as the Droid 2's slide-out keyboard, big enough for me to 2-thumb type with reasonable accuracy.  So I went with the Droid X to have fewer moving parts.

Cheers,

Don

[KimberCliff]

Thank you everyone for the helpful replies. I wish I could have chosen more than one post as the solution, as several suggestions factored into my decision.

I'd done quite a bit of research on the Droid X and the Droid 2, and went into my local Verizon store today, all set to upgrade to the Droid X. While waiting for a customer service rep, I took a look at several of the phones on display. I was even more set at that point to get the Droid X. I then talked to a salesperson, and he showed me a phone I hadn't even considered (which was on the website, but the description was a bit different than the one I actually saw in the store). I decided to get the HTC Thunderbolt. The specs are very much like the Droid X, but it offered a little better battery life (according to the Verizon sales person), as well as 4G capabilites, and an internal 32G card, as opposed to the 8G card included with the Droid X. I'd priced the card at Amazon prior to going into the store, and I know the 32G card alone costs about 75 bucks. We also qualified for a discount which brought the price of the Thunderbolt to the same as that of the Droid X. The only thing really lacking was the HDMI capability. Thus, since the features were so similar, and I really liked the looks and the feel of theThunderbolt, that was the one I purchased.

I've had time to play with it this evening, and after reinstalling all of my old apps, and transferring my old files, I also got time to play with one of the other features I was really interested in, that both the Droid X and Thunderbolt offered -- an FM radio. I remember seeing several posts about the FM radio on the Droid X, and saw some not so favorable reviews. I didn't try the FM radio out on the Droid X myself, but I did try it out on the Thunderbolt. I was very pleasantly surprised. I was able to tune into several local FM stations, some of them very clear, including my local favorite. I was very happy with that indeed!

So far, so good. Thanks again for all of your help!