[crispeto]

Are these technologies the same? Can anyone list the pros and cons to either? I'd love to know the difference. Thanks.

[sempai]

They're similar, sure.

SureType uses a different keyboard layout. Its QWERTY instead of 1ABCDEF.

SureType, for that very reason, is usually much faster, since it has the same expectation of where letters are on a full-size keyboard.

T9 is more ubiquitous, almost every device in the last 10 years has had it, (except those idiotic first stabs at 'iTap' that Motorola had. argggh) and isn't really horrible, though not as efficient as SureType or a full QWERTY 'board on a device.

[crucifixion]

I wholeheartedly DISAGREE.

I've been using phones with t9 and itap and now that I have the Pearl, I wish I could go back to those old phones. Obviously I wont since the Pearl does too much for me, but the other phones with text based on a keypad is so much faster.
1. You can type with one hand
2. Because youre typing with one hand the keys are close together making it so you dont have to reach out for a letter
3. Because its a keypad, the keys are bigger, as opposed to the blackberry where the letters are so small since they have to fit all 26 letters, etc on there

I think suretype is nice and it can get the word I want all the time, but as far as texting speed, so far it takes me 3 minutes to type out like 2 paragraphs of text whereas t9 gets me there in less than 30 seconds

[NJBlackBerry]

If u typ ths way, th t9 of crs will b btr 4 u.

But if you type full sentences, Suretype is much quicker.

'n u opnd a thrd that wuz 15 mths old!

[takeshi]

Originally Posted by crucifixion

Obviously I wont since the Pearl does too much for me, but the other phones with text based on a keypad is so much faster.
1. You can type with one hand

Meh -- it's a completely subject matter. And there are plenty of SureType users who can type one-handed.

..and yes, this is an antique thread...

[crucifixion]

LOL...sorry, didn't realize how old the thread was. I was just chillin with the whole t9 vs suretype thing in my head and so I did a search and found that and then posted in it..didn't even think about the dates!

NJBlackBerry- you are incorrect about what you said. What you said might be true for the regular tap method where you have to press a button maybe 3 times to get one letter. T9 and iTap are predictive text messaging applications that when you type in the word by pressing the button only once, the word comes out. So when youre doing it on a regular phone with larger keys, you can just fly by with the texting and type in complete sentences like i'm typing this now.

Since I've only been using the Pearl for about 2 weeks now I guess I really can't say for sure that SureType is slower and more clumsy. Maybe ill get the hang of doing one handed entries and ill be able to do it as fast as I could in T9

[msingewald]

I believe the SureType method has a higher success rate since each key can only be 2 letters, not 3. 2 of the keys only have 1 letter further improving the odds of picking the correct word.

I type one-handed all the time on my 7130, but I can also use 2 hands when I want more speed.

Also, does T9 learn new words? I know SureType does. And, the Blackberry can be setup to auto-replace letters with words and/or sentences. Very handy.

[crucifixion]

Originally Posted by msingewald

I believe the SureType method has a higher success rate since each key can only be 2 letters, not 3. 2 of the keys only have 1 letter further improving the odds of picking the correct word.

I type one-handed all the time on my 7130, but I can also use 2 hands when I want more speed.

Also, does T9 learn new words? I know SureType does. And, the Blackberry can be setup to auto-replace letters with words and/or sentences. Very handy.

I still have my old Razr on Verizon (haven't cancelled yet) so I'm sending text messages all the time on the Pearl and Razr. The thing about T9, is that its only 9 keys to press. So you can hold your phone in one hand all you gotta do is move your thumb and since the keys are so big you dont have to worry about pressing the wrong key. Right now, I'm still about 3times faster texting on T9/iTap phones than I am using SureType

Its possible that my slowness is because ive been using T9/iTap since about 2000 so I have like 7 years of texting this way and I'm so used to the keys/letters being in a certain spot. Like on the Razr the '3' key has DEF but on the Pearl, the same key for that same right corner is the 'OP' key so when I'm trying to text really fast my instincts make my thumb go to a certain spot

Also, T9/iTap does learn new words but not automatically, you kind of have to tell it that a new word is a new word. problem is, you can't really delete words from memory, so if it memorizes a word, its there for life

[hailer]

Number of keys are irrelevant for some. It all comes down to what you are comfortable with.

I mean the number of keys on a regular keyboard doesn't keep me from typing fast as I currently type 70 WPM with very few spelling errors.

I can ten key 300 KPM but typing out words using one thumb compared to two thumbs and a full QWERTY is no contest. I don't have sausage fingers and am more comfortable with using two hands to type out words. So for me it is QWERTY all the way compared to T9 and Suretype.

I also found using just one thumb tiring compared to two and being right handed, my right is more accurate than my left so switching hands slows me down, but using both at the same time keeps my speed up so go figure....