[General Questions and Answers] sorlan:
Let the contestants step into the arena and may the best keyboard win

from: http://breaking140.tumblr.com/post/1268331175/swipe-till-ya-drop-swype-1-6-vs-slideit-2-11

Well, something did - and thoroughly! “What, oh what, tell me, good man, tell me!” I hear you say? Well, let the contestants step into the arena and may the most usable keyboard replacement win! FIGHT!

Mind you, I am not going into every technical bit here, will not be checking EVERY button and all the functions - I’ll concentrate on those things that matter to me in a reallife situation. This review is based on Swype 1.60 and SlideIt 2.1.1.. I haven’t found a fully working 2.4 version of Swype for the HTC Desire yet.

Settings

The usual stuff like auto-space, word prediction, feedback via audio or vibrate. Could not find anything outragesly different.

UI

Ok, I have to admit that I was put off by SlideIt’s clunky buttons and the overall non-stylishness when you put it besides sleek and black Swype. I am running the Opendesire Rom by AdamG with a black theme and Swype fits perfectly. SlideIt not so much; why don’t they lose the white plasticy buttons for something more appealing?

Special characters / smilies / etc.

A long press on one of the keys is enough in Swype to get you an semicolon; in SlideIt you have to work for it: first you have to click the “?123” key THEN maneuver to the special character you want, click it and get returned to the character screen. THAT seems a bit tedious but I got used to it - especially after clicking not long enough on Swype’s keys and being rewarded with j’s and k’s instead of colons or semicolons.

A nuisance are the special german characters in SlideIt: they are hidden on page 3 (!) of 4 - do I really need to click five times to get an ä? :-/

No smilie button on SlideIt but I never missed it, really.

Switching between languages

I am using Swype 1.6 because 2.4 has the language changer disabled. I am as often typing in English as I am in German and that’s a complete no-go. The 1.6 version still has the changer enabled, which brings you to a long list of languages. Scroll up a bit, choose UK English (or whatever you want to choose) and you are set.

SlideIt really shines here: download one of the many language packs from the market and activate. With one click on the little globe icon you switch languages instantly. I like this better than having to maneuver lists.

Swyping words.

Whoo! Finally! “Why haven’t you tackled that one first?” Because there is not much to say, honestly. Both Swype and SlideIt work well with even my not-so-thin fingers. They both show the path of swiping, they both show you recommendations.

SlideIt shows its in the horizontal bar. You can either ignore the recommendation or choose one - as expected. IF SlideIt does NOT know the word it just gives you two “??” - just swipe again with maybe more luck this time. IF there is more than one possibility of what your squiggly swipe path could have meant, SlideIt COULD stick with a wrong recommendation IF you proceed. Just check if you are unsure if it got it right.

Swype in its own little popup which I find too small. I often pick the wrong one, have to go back and delete.

Adding words

Recommendation

And that is what I love about SlideIt: it may not be as clean, neat and stylish as Swype but it gets the job done a lot easier. My job, mind you; the way I like to type. I often have words in text messages or in chat where either the german or english dictionary just shrugs and says “Nope, don’t know that one”. Being able to add words easily, add characters or whole words to composites is important to me.

Swype’s recommendation popup thingy is WAY to small, is not shown unless I say so explicitly in the settings. It won’t let me add characters or whole words, without pressing space (“pick word”), deleting the auto-space and THEN adding characters.

SlideIt’s recommendation bar is not as fancy but adding words with a quick click on “+” is not less intuitive than adding it automatically as in Swype (with the problem that it also adds mistyped stuff..).

Final thoughts:

Some people dismiss SlideIt as a less-sleek Swype clone, with worse path recognition and a recommendation bar that is ALWAYS visible. I have used Swype extensively for a few month and have now switched to SlideIt a few weeks ago. I can honestly say that it is a real alternative to Swype (which is NOT available via market and gets upgrades which **** up the language changer). I am done with waiting for another trial of Swype which won’t self-destruct after some time.

SlideIt offers really good quality, a huge number of dictionaries and a very intuitive way of adding new words while typing on-the-fly, running from one subway train to another in drizzly Berlin. Was it worth the ~8 dollar price? Absolutely.