Dasur brings serious speed to on-screen input!!

Add 2 more soft keyboards to the ever-growing mix of on-screen tappers. The last 2 I tried out: Zoomboard and TouchPal, which you can read up on here and here, and Tim’s review here (if soft keyboards are your thing), are both pretty cool. TouchPal is probably my all-time fav, but these 2 new soft keyboards from Dasur have me rethinking that. Dasurs’ ThumbKey and SlideIT are both very “smart†alternatives that are useful for astonishingly rapid on-screen text entry.

Installation
I had some problems getting both keyboards to load, but it was most likely an issue caused by having at least 3 other SIP apps installed (Zoomboard, TouchPal, and SunnySoft Full Screen), so put no blame on ThumbKey or SlideIT. The Dasur Troubleshooting page listed tips for dealing with these kinds of problems (which were unsuccessful), but finally, I was able to use the “safe mode†feature in SPB Pocket Plus to get them to work without issue. They are both several MB in size, which is on the hefty side for a soft keyboard replacement, in my opinion.

Using ThumbKey and SlideIT
ThumbKey and SlideIT are both ingenious alternatives to using WMs’ standard SIP panel, and I would say that each is valuable in it’s own right. As the names imply, they are tailored for a particular mode of entry; either by using your Thumbs or stylus. SlideIT uses a predictive word engine to analyze the pattern of your stylus trace (as you drag it from letter to letter), and based on the trace, presents a list of possible word hits. The default one it selects from the list is usually the most likely, allowing you to type (er, actually drag) rapidly without worrying about stopping to make selections. ThumbKey uses a similar approach, except that instead of using the stylus, you can use your thumbs to type directly on the screen. If you’re old school like me, you will probably use your stylus anyway. Striking the wrong keys with thumbs (or stylus if you prefer) is compensated for by the predictive engine’s ability to provide accurate word hits, which it does so with amazing reliability. This probably accounts for the larger size (in terms of install space) of both of these soft keyboard alternatives.

It’s well worth the increase, in my opinion, as the guessing engine will essentially adjust to your input. In my case, it is undoubtedly the fastest I have ever been able to type reliably using a soft keyboard. However, the ThumbKey keyboard layout is too spartan for seriously lengthy input (i.e. like writing this review). Performing tasks like entering non-alpha characters, using CAPs or inputting specific text becomes an annoyance, as you must constantly tap through to other screens to get to these keys. CAPs, and toggling on/off the predictive input really should be on the main screen somewhere. Both of these products are clearly aimed at the SMS, chat, and similar quick messaging tasks common to the road-warrior or the younger ACAC “always connected, always chatting†crowd. I tried writing portions of this review with both soft keyboard options (ThumbKey and SlideIT) and eventually switched back to my hard keyboard (iGo Stowaway). It’s hard to beat a hardware keyboard, but I was blown away at how well I could type with my thumbs using ThumbKey. Both keyboards are loaded up with aliased shortcuts for short message phrases (like “sc†for stay cool), and the dictionary can be customized or certain words suppressed if need be to increase accuracy. You can do multiple word updates and introduce your own dictionary by editing a list of words on your PC (up to 1000 characters long), copy to the device and cut/paste into the update (the U button) input dialog.

ThumbKey
ThumbKeys’ main display is pretty standard from a keyboard aspect. For simple word entry, you get a comma key, a period key, backspace, enter, as well as the standard letters. There is also a function key (to go to other keyboard options), as well as a DL-W key, which allows one to delete the entire last word that was typed. As you type away, a list of possible word choices appear along the left side of the keyboad (after 3 letters). Some options like caps, that typically appear straight-away (in the standard WM SIP, and oddly in SlideIT), require 2 taps to enable in ThumbKey. But, that really shouldn’t be much of an issue if all you do is tap in abbreviated message-type text entry on your mobile.

ThumbKey Accuracy Mode

Features:
ThumbKey offers a second mode for entering exact text (minus the word prediction) referred to in the help documentation as “Tapping with Accuracyâ€. This mode reminds me of entering text on my non-touch screen cell-phone (excruciating), except there’s more keys. Each key (except the “l" and "m†keys) contains 2 letters. Tapping once selects the first letter, and a double tap selects the second. It’s a ponderous way to enter text, but then, should only be required when entering short specific strings that fall outside of the normal word-guessing mode, like a URL, for example.

SlideIT
SlideIT strikes me as the more mature application. It has better integration of it’s features into a single on-screen keyboard, but works much the same way as ThumbKey. As I said above, the basic premise is to drag the stylus from letter to letter whilst the word guesser does it’s magic, but you can quickly toggle on/off the predictive mode and tap away free-hand. It also has a small graffiti panel on the left for drawing in symbols like a “!†or “?â€. The rest of SlideITs features are basically the same as in ThumbKey, except ThumbKey supposedly has shortcuts to “smilie†symbols that I failed to locate anywhere in the interface, and the Help button also didn’t seem to launch help. Maybe I can inquire to these minor issues with the vendor, as it could have been due to my aforementioned loading issues.

SlideIT character input using graffiti panel...

SlideIT character keys

ThumbKey and SlideIT are available here, and here for a try or a buy. There are short videos available at each site so you can see them in action before you buy. SlideIT is $40, and ThumbKey is $25, which is a little steep for soft keyboards, considering my iGo hardware keyboard was $42 from Amazon. They are the speediest methods of typing (natively) on a WM device I have thus far experienced.