By The Samsung Galaxy Note is a pretty big device – 5.3 inches big. The Dell Streak was 5 inches and I still thought it was pushing the lines of a tablet. Samsung realizes that with the huge display and all the screen real estate they could have done some things better.
One of those things, of course is keyboard use. I can’t tell you how many times I type with one hand when I need to get a short message out. Some like to text while driving (bad idea, by the way), some might eat/drink and text and others simply just don’t want to use their second hand (humans are lazy). A new update for the device brings tweaks to the keyboard that those folks should enjoy.
The keyboard can be aligned to the left or right of the screen and it has been shrinked for comfortable one-thumb use. The dialpad can also be used in this way. They’ve also added a dedicated number row to the keyboard – might as well make use of all that real estate.
Other minor tweaks have been made to TouchWiz, as well, such as the lockscreen unlocking mechanism. Before, there was a large pane you had to swipe away (a tiring motion for a phone this big). Now you get more of an Ice Cream Sandwich-style unlock so you won’t have to move your finger far to get to your homescreen.
The browser has gotten some tweaks and Samsung’s included a torch app for using the LED as a flashlight. Users with unbranded phones in Europe should start seeing the update over-the-air. Be sure to enable WiFi before downloading it because you’ll be eating up 70MB of bandwidth. Find more photos over at The Unwired.
I want one of these so badly!
kind of defeats the purpose of a large phone by making the keyboard small. Still think this is to large for me anyway. Galaxy nexus is about the largest I will go until they make larger screens in the same size phones.
? no it doesn’t you get the large screen when you want it for viewing but if you texting with one hand you thumb can’t reach all the way across the screen so they have an option now to shrink it to one side, that doesn’t defeat any purpose, especially not a larger screen. this is a great addition, i think it should be in stock android, as one handed texting on even some other phones are difficult
great for texting and driving. /s
Wait, theres no swype for this???…
there is, though it would be on Swype to enable a feature like this (not Samsung) – this post is about the Samsung keyboard
Innovative :)
Any divices even close to this one? Name one!
It’s the best of the best? Not agreed? Stay with your 3.5″ forever!
Calculator got the one-hand treatment too.
So did I.
Geez….
Real men use two hands to play with their toys.
I want phandroid to do nothing but scour the net and hound Samsung and Verizon until they find out about if/when this thing is going to come to Verizon. I was three minutes away from hitting the “purchase” button on the Nexus when I saw the story for this phone coming as the Journal.
I felt completely defeated when everybody was saying that this thing would never see the light of verizon’s LTE network, and am now overjoyed by just the rumor. That being said, I’m asking too much of my DX as it is, and can only wait for so long before I do purchase the nexus.
So, you hear that boys? NO STORIES EXCEPT FOR THOSE PERTAINING TO THE VERIZON NOTE/JOURNAL!!!
I have spoken. Make it so.
i am praying this comes to big red! and soon! this will be my upgrade from my DX!