Today’s “Versus Mondays” pits the classic or candy bar style cell phone against the flip or clamshell phone. When cell phone first appeared on the market there was only one style, classic. All this changed when the StarTAC was released in the late 90’s. Sure there were flip phones prior to the StarTAC, but undoubtedly the StarTAC made flip style cell phones popular. With the huge popularity of the StarTAC cell phone manufacturers scrambled to create more flip phones. I would venture to say for some time the flip phone was the preferred style for most consumers. The flip phone was more compact then the classic style and definitely more “cool”. Things started to sway back in the classic style when smartphones started to become popular.
The smartphone took cell phones to the next level with their ability to have full QWERTY keyboards, multimedia features and of course touchscreen. It was not feasible to cram all these features into a flip phone. Some manufacturers such as Blackberry have tried with the Blackberry Pearl flip, but making a smartphone fit the flip style just has not worked to date. The ability to view video and other “high-end” features do not make since to put into a flip phone.
So in my option the flip phone will always be a popular choice for users who want a cell phone to perform the basics in a little package. For those who want a full feature smartphone the classic style is still the way to go. It will be interesting to see if any manufacturers will be able to crack the code and make a flip phone a true smartphone.
To build on Versus Mondays from last week lets take a look at the two prevailing keyboard technologies for cell phones, T9 and Full Qwerty. The concept for a full QWERTY keyboard on a cell phone has been around for some time. It was a no brainer to have a full keyboard on a cell phone to allow for easy texting and emailing. The only problem is that a full QWERTY keyboard takes up a lot of real estate on a cell phone. To ease this problem and still have the ability to type fast T9 (predictive text) was created. If you’re not familiar with T9 let me give you a quick intro. T9 allows you to start typing a word and the technology automatically “predicts” the word you’re typing and finishes the word for you. I must say that it’s quite impressive and seems like magic. Plus the added advantage is that it uses the same basic 9 keys that are on a regular cell phone keypad. So my question to all of you today is which one do you like better and why. Do you prefer the ability to have a full QWERTY keyboard or do you prefer using T9?
Today I’m starting a new weekly post called Versus Monday. Every Monday I will compare two things, it can be phones, accessories, services, game, etc… I will compare both and declare a winner. To start things off lets look at the classic full QWERTY keyboard compared to the virtual full QWERTY keyboard.
Ever since the inception of the Blackberry, QWERTY keyboards on cell phones have been extremely popular. The design of these keyboards have ranged anywhere between raised keypads to flat keypads and keys that are spaced to keys that are next to each other. The downside of the classic keyboard is that it takes up key real estate on the cell phone and is not always easy to “type”. This is especially true for keyboards that have small buttons and people with big fingers!
On the other hand the iPhone made the virtual QWERTY keyboard popular. With the virtual keyboard you can type right on the screen without having a seperate area for a classic keyboard. This saves space on the cell phone and allows for either a smaller phone or a larger screen. However, virtual keyboards have problems of their own. Often times the screen does not recognize when you “touch” a key. There is always the potential of finger smudges on the screen.
WINNER: classic keyboard
I have to give it to the classic keyboard. I find that overall they are easier to use and when it comes down to it that’s what matters most.
