[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo General] eaglesteve:
Is it better? I don't think so,sorry.

Macaby007,

Thank you for introducing us to another keyboard options. I'm constantly on a lookout for better applications, be it the task manager, file manager, or battery gauge. I don't have special allegiance to any of them. It is the same when come to software keyboard.

By now,I'd have tried both Finger Touch and Tengo for a very extensive period without any prejudice against either one,

I would like to offer my view,which happens to differ from yours. I hope you do not take offence that I have a different opinion.

For me, I look at the following issues when choosing my most favoured keyboard and I look at these issues not just for these two keyboards but all future one that come along.

Real VGA compliant

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This should be the very first criteria for those of us using Tobias' wonderful realVGA utility.

The standard Finger Touch does not support real VGA, but the specially created version for PK ROM does. Tengo supports all threeall along. I would be generous, and consider Finger Touch realVGA compliant on all VGA devices, not just the special version on Athena.

Score Tengo vs FT: 1:1

Key sizes for ABC keys

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This affects the ease of hitting the key. The larger the hitting area the better it will be to quicklyhit a key without missing it. Large hitting area is good whetherwe use stylus, finger,or thumb.

The Portrait mode Key size of the most likely to be used layout is measured. Size of Tengo Nano layout and layout 1 for Finger Touch are compared.

Tengo Nano key size: 108 square mm

Finger Touch key size: 56.25 square mm

Score Tengo vs FT: 2:1

Distance travelled to go from alpha key to alpha key

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Do you have to swing your stylus from coordinate 1,1 to 10,3? Does your thumb need to stretch to the centre of the keyboard, then very quickl bend unnaturally inward to reach for the z and m keys? Wouldn't it be much better if the thumb is relaxed around the TYGHVB key areas, and not having to travel to the QAZPLM areas?

Score Tengo vs FT: 3:1

The number of keys to choose from

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Typical keyboard has 26 keys to choose from when typing a alphabet character. A keyboard that groups these 26 keys into fewer keys means four things:

1) less choices means quicker choices.

2) less choices means less chances of mistakes

3) less keys means travel distan from key to key is minimised, hence faster typing speed.

4) less grouping also means we have larger hitting area, as mentioned in the preceding paragraph.

Tengo groups the keys into 6 while Finger Touchdoes not group them.

Score Tengo vs FT: 4:1

Direct access to numbers and commonly used punctuation marks

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It is just more convenient to have these commonly required keys directly accessible.

Both the layout compared does this.

Score Tengo vs FT: 4:1

Screen real estate invaded.

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Why do people want real VGA? It's because we value seeing more.

When we use a hardware keyboard, the biggest benefit is it leaves our screen completely available for the applications at all time. Software keyboard takes over some of the previous real estate. While we want large hitting area,we also at the same time want more screen space for the application, especially in landscape mode.

Can this contradiction be solved?

The most ideal keyboard would have a very low height but large hitting areas, yet having direct access to all alphas,numbers,and common punctuations.

Height of Tengo nano: 24mm - you see more

Height of Finger Touch: 37.5mm - you see less

Score Tengo vs FT: 5:1

Completeness of functions

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The main things that I look for are:

- cut and copy, either using CTRL + XCV or special keys.

Both keyboards have CTRL keys, but Tengo also have special cut/copy/paste keys.

- delete last character or word.

Both keyboards can delete the last character, but Tengo can also delete the last word without needing to first highlight the word.

- Changing CAP for whole word or first character of word just typed.

In Finger Touch, you must decide to cap it BEFORE typing. In Tengo, you can do that, but additionally you can type first, then cap the first character or the entire word AFTER typing - I use this feature very often.

- completeness of symbols: while this may sound obvious and even taken for granted, there are keyboards out there with incomplete symbols. Happy Tapping keyboard does not have £ sign is an example.

Finger Touch has these symbols.!@#$%^&*()/<>,.?`-=[]\;' ~_+{}|:"

Tengo has these symbols

@#$%^&()/<>,.?!+':"_ \` *¢ ;=[ ]{ } ~ £ ¥ € ± ^ ®© ™ |º § « » ¿¡ ¶ µ

These characters are in Tengo and not in FT:

'¢ £ ¥ € ± ^ ®© ™ º § « » ¿¡ ¶ µ

Every symbol in FT is also in Tengo.

- support for canned message,or fast keyboard. It would increase productivity a great deal to have phrases such as 'what are you up to' being inserted my choosing from an ordered pre-stored message list. This function is already available in the sms application, but having it as the keyboard function means other applications can benefit from this function too.

Both does this.

- Support for accented words such as café, and the ease of doing it.

Tengo does this. I don't see this function in Finger Touch.

- multi language support.

Tengo supports Danish,Dutch,English,Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.

Finger Touch supports English. I could not find any information on the vendor website that suggest Finger Touch has similar functionality.

That's the list of functions I've listed but you may have others. Please feel free to mention them.

So, contrary to Macaby007's view in posting 1, I give the point on comprehensiveness to Tengo rather than Finger Touch.

Score Tengo vs FT: 6:1

Ease of updating the dictionary

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Like it or not, the standard dictionary will not contain all the words you use.

Tengo lets you add and remove words easily. I can't figure out how this could be done with Finger Touch

I would give Finger Touch the benefit of doubt and consider it capable of this

Score Tengo vs FT: 7:2

In conclusion, I still think Tengo is the best software keyboard between the two.

Cheers.