Driod has terrible touch screen?

Darkwarrior006 · Mar 24, 2010

MOTO touchscreen comparison recruits robotic implements for heightened precision (video) -- Engadget

It it just me or does the droid have a terrible touch screen? Is it because the screen isnt full intergraded with the body?

bemenaker · Mar 24, 2010

This ******ed article again? Search the threads, there is plenty of talk about this, and that test is so horribly flawed it's a joke.

grainysand · Mar 24, 2010

Oh, according to them, the Nexus One also has a broken touch screen. If you believe Engadget, nearly all Android phones have terrible touch screens, which is obviously not the case.

nycebo · Mar 24, 2010

How the heck is it flawed? It's straight lines. Doesn't seem like the iPhone or the Nexus One had much of an issue with it. Frankly, I've used a friend's iPhone and the touchscreen is INFINITELY superior to the Droid in that it's more precise, more responsive, and faster. Now don't get me wrong, I love Android, but the Droid's touchscreen leaves a lot to be desired. Maybe the rumoured 2.1 upgrade will address some of those faults for us.

CRPercodani · Mar 24, 2010

bemenaker said:
This ******ed article again? Search the threads, there is plenty of talk about this, and that test is so horribly flawed it's a joke.

This is using a robot to ensure more accurate results. The test may have some flaws but overall it is true that the iphone has a better touchscreen then the Droid. Who cares though? If your fine with the Droid then don't worry about it.

Wakey · Mar 24, 2010

I'll say this..

I dealt with the Motorola Q for a couple years longer than I should have waiting on the physical keyboard on the Droid.

I traded in my launch phone for the same reasons many had from the word go, just a couple weeks ago. Yesterday I slid open the keyboard to backspace on a text I was sending and realized it was the FIRST TIME I had done it on the new phone, in nearly a month of use.

Much easier/faster to type on the screen.

Le0_Br4zUc4 · Mar 24, 2010

Well I not a iPhone fan, I love my Droid. When you play with a the iPhone you can feel the difference of the touch on the screen, you feel that the screen some how is more sensitive ... but oh well, that phone has been around for a longer time then our android devices so we will see the same or better quality on out touch screen android phones as we go.

Personally I don't care about how better their screen is as they show on the test, I care that for me my Droid is a lot better and that is it.

brife · Mar 24, 2010

If anything I f feel like my droid's touch screen is more than sensitive enough for me.

I do believe however that applying a scratch resistant overlay to the screen can negatively affect sensitivity. My wife and I bought Zaggs but after I applied hers to her Eris and experienced the difference I refused to apply the Zagg to my droid.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

nycebo · Mar 24, 2010

Le0_Br4zUc4 said:
Personally I don't care about how better their screen is as they show on the test, I care that for me my Droid is a lot better and that is it.

That's exactly the point. Yes, the touchscreen is inferior. Hopefully they will be able to improve it over the next 3 years just like the iPhone did. Meanwhile, the Android OS is just SO much better than the iPhone OS. I love widgets, love the openness, love multi-tasking, love the Google integration, love Google Voice, etc. Consequently, I'm able to tolerate the touchscreen...and hopefully when 2.1 is released, typing will be vastly improved as a result of multi-touch.

gwlaw99 · Mar 24, 2010

Accorging to this test it has a much better screen than the Nexus one.

stedrocklp · Mar 24, 2010

It may be true that the iphone has a better touchscreen. That being said my droid's touch screen is as sensitive as I need it to be. I have had many touchscreen phones and I am pleased with how the phone reacts to my input. Sometimes I feel like people try to find small problems when they are overlooking the things that make our phone superior.

rjoudrey · Mar 24, 2010

People who use anything other than user experience to rate there phone are plain ol' dumb!

It's clear that a phone with 1/4 the pixels will have a lot less ambiguity about what is being touched. This boils down more to interpolation (which is software driven) than accuracy.

virtus · Mar 24, 2010

I have to question this test because I can draw the test pattern more accurately myself in a different app (Draw!). So something is obviously off.

I downloaded the app they use (DrawNoteK) and Draw!(Free). After a few quick tests, it was very apparent that there are significant differences between the two programs. Draw was noticeably better at drawing than DrawNoteK.

DrawNoteK's performance dropped off significantly as I drew faster. Draw represented curves more accurately, while DrawNoteK displayed curved lines as a series of sharp angles. DrawNoteK also had slightly more lag. Download both apps and try it yourself.

So I would like to see the test re-run using Draw! instead. I would also like to see the recording in real-time (not sped up). Results will probably still be inferior to an iPhone, but not as horrible as indicated by the test.

Also, the squiggly line down the left side of the screen almost looks as if the "finger" was straddling the edge of the sensor. So occasionally it read as off-screen, and occasionally read as on-screen. This would interpolate out to a squiggly line. This could either be caused by the "finger" being slightly misaligned (probable) or a manufacturing defect (misaligned screen, also probable and still not good).

You might say "The Eris was using the same app, why does it look better?" I would bet that it has to do with the fact that the Eris and the Droid have different screens. It is unlikely that the app has been optimized for both screens. This points to a fundamental weakness in Android - and that weakness is fragmentation. iPhone devs have the luxury of knowing the exact resolution, memory, processor, hardware, etc... when they are writing an app. When we develop for android we have to design to the lowest common denominator (usually 1.6, with lower res screens, lower CPU and mem) if we want to access the most users.

I still love my droid and silly test like this doesn't affect my experience.

takeshi · Mar 24, 2010

Darkwarrior006 said:
MOTO touchscreen comparison recruits robotic implements for heightened precision (video) -- Engadget

It it just me or does the droid have a terrible touch screen? Is it because the screen isnt full intergraded with the body?

When did you realize this? After reading the article in the link?

Doubledee90 · Mar 24, 2010

I honestly dont see a difference between the iphone and the droid...I barely have to press down on both of them, they are both accurate and everything. This is just a dumb test, I would feel that because the droids screen had not perfect lines that it is more accurate in that it does not average out the lines, it is drawing exactly what the person wrote...but who knows.

Geezer Squid · Mar 24, 2010

nycebo said:
How the heck is it flawed? It's straight lines. Doesn't seem like the iPhone or the Nexus One had much of an issue with it. Frankly, I've used a friend's iPhone and the touchscreen is INFINITELY superior to the Droid in that it's more precise, more responsive, and faster. Now don't get me wrong, I love Android, but the Droid's touchscreen leaves a lot to be desired. Maybe the rumoured 2.1 upgrade will address some of those faults for us.

It's in the program they used. Here's a screen cap of my freehand drawing in Draw!!:

I know my lines aren't very straight, but there are no gaps or anomalies. The lines are where my finger went. How's that compare to their stupid robot lines? Their test is rigged and they're a bunch of fanboiz.

emdmao · Mar 24, 2010

I don't know...before I knew much about the Android OS and was in the market for a new phone, the aspect that made me choose the Droid over and iPhone was that the touch screen was more accurate when I used it especially for typing. The same for my wife, she could not text on the iPhone and was impressed by the Droid's accuracy. We both ended up with the Droid.

Couldn't be happier, I would've be so upset if we walked away with an iPhone knowing what I know now about the Android OS.

sooper_droid12 · Mar 24, 2010

Questions that arise are:

1) How did the robot produce WORSE results than the human input? To me, that tells me that there is some sort of inconsistency with the "touch" of the robot being registered on the touch screen.
2) Why is the DROID's draw program different than the other ones in the test (except for the Eris, which performed pretty poorly too)? Why aren't ALL THE ANDROID phones using the same exact app?
3) The other thing that this test fails to account for is: touchscreen resolution and how the software interprets input. It could be that the iPhone is just is better at "understanding" that what you're doing is drawing a line? In order for this to be a "real test," you have to be able to mate different touch screens with the same OS. Did these guys fail science class or miss the lesson on scientific method. How do you conclusively make a conclusion on touchscreen when you have six different phones with six different OS makers and version, six different screens and FOUR different draw programs!

I'm not upset with this because it makes my DROID look like crap when I know for sure it isn't. What I'm upset about is that these guys make faulty conclusions by a flawed scientific method. Rigorous stress test... ridiculous. I use the Magic Marker app on the market and works flawlessly.

sooper_droid12 · Mar 24, 2010

I forgot to add...

How do you not correct for differences in resolution? The DROID is the most resolute of the screens, and not by some small margin:

DROID: 854 x 480
iPhone3Gs: 480 x 320
Nexus One: 800 x 480 (simulated, actual resolution: 533 x 480, due to the 2x2 sub-pixel structure; even Samsung (the maker of the screen) calls it "Visual VGA" -- "It's not important how many pixels are actually there, only what the eye perceives." - J. Pollack, VP of Strategic Sales.)
Blackberry Storm: 480 x 360
Palm Pre: 480 x 320
Droid Eris: 480 x 320

Resolution of the touchscreen obviously plays into how the OS registers touch. Clearly not accounted for in the test.

hexon · Mar 24, 2010

stedrocklp said:
It may be true that the iphone has a better touchscreen. That being said my droid's touch screen is as sensitive as I need it to be. I have had many touchscreen phones and I am pleased with how the phone reacts to my input. Sometimes I feel like people try to find small problems when they are overlooking the things that make our phone superior.

Random, but looking at your avatar, are you a member of maxima.org??

On the OPs topic, I will agree that the iphone/ipod touch's touchscreen is more accurate. I was always able to click on tiny links and it accurately choose the one I wanted. On my droid I have to zoom in and then click to make sure it doesn't choose a nearby link.

sooper_droid12 · Mar 24, 2010

hexon said:
Random, but looking at your avatar, are you a member of maxima.org??

On the OPs topic, I will agree that the iphone/ipod touch's touchscreen is more accurate. I was always able to click on tiny links and it accurately choose the one I wanted. On my droid I have to zoom in and then click to make sure it doesn't choose a nearby link.

Difference isn't so much accuracy as it is the price you pay for increased resolution, per screen size. Even so, very rarely do I have to zoom in to click a link, unless the links are packed close together.

lone_anarchist · Mar 24, 2010

Display
The DROID has a 3.7 inch capacitive touchscreen. The exact same heat sensing touch screen used by Blackberry Storm and Apple iPhone. The screen support WVGA resolution clocking in at 480 x 854 resolution.

nycebo · Mar 25, 2010

Geezer Squid said:
It's in the program they used. Here's a screen cap of my freehand drawing in Draw!!:

I know my lines aren't very straight, but there are no gaps or anomalies. The lines are where my finger went. How's that compare to their stupid robot lines? Their test is rigged and they're a bunch of fanboiz.

That was pretty darn good. Actually, I had meant to come back to this thread after I did a modified version of this test on Google Gestures. I can draw perfectly straight lines AND quite quickly (before the program thinks I'm drawing another letter). As was mentioned above, something is rotten in the land of Denmark.

Driod has terrible touch screen?

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