What makes a cell phone good for texting?
Text messaging is everywhere and everyone is doing it. You see people with their cell phone in one hand furiously typing messages. Especially teens that seem to have been totally obsessed by the text craze.
The popularity of social networking sites and the desire to post where you are and what you are doing, has further increased the text obsession.
So what makes a cell phone good for texting? What features are user friendly and make the text process work for you?
At one time all cell phones had a standardized numeric keyboard. This has the numbers displayed with a few letters above the number on each key. Text messaging with one of these requires the user to find the correct letter and then type it. The text message composer will have to wait a moment to type again, if the same key is needed for the next letter. This gives the phone a chance to reset so you can access a new letter. It helps to memorize which numbers have which letters on them so you can speed up your typing and more easily locate the letters.
The cell phone companies added a multi-touch feature where typing a letter or two will bring up a word or a list of words that are the most obvious choices, to save the user time on input. This is not very accurate though, and many users do not find this feature helpful.
Since most cell phone providers utilize SMS or short message service, you are not allowed to exceed 160 characters per message, which means users benefit from a short form language of letters that stand for phrases. LOL or laughing out loud, or CYT for see you tomorrow, are examples.
Cell phones with slide out or flip out keyboards are available. This eliminates the issue of not being able to find and reuse the letter keys on a standard cell phone. This QWERTY style keyboard is often added to the usual cell numeric keyboard. The user than has the option of either one, and can choose to use the QWERTY keyboard when it is appropriate to do so. These keyboard greatly speed up your text message input time and accuracy of letter choice.
The newest cell phones have onscreen keyboards. Much like a smaller touch screen tablet computer, these keyboards come up for use when selected. The disadvantage is the key size, and lack of any touchable feel which makes some users have a hard time typing input, especially when they are new to this set up.
The best thing for any prospective cell phone buyerwould be to try out the cell phone they are considering buying, so they are completely comfortable with the phone texting functionality.
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