Objects Used For Pointing & Clicking

[PC Bigboy]

First off - Newbie here so please bear with me & be kind

Now to the subject at hand.....

Yesterday, I bought a Kyocera Sanyo Zio phone from the local Cricket store. Now I knew there would be a learning curve but there was one curve I wasn't really counting on

That being the ability to smoothly move about, type, point & click without ending up in no-mans land or creating typos

The reason - Big fingers & little SUPER SENSITIVE buttons

I honestly don't know how some people do it so effortlessly. It must be an art form of some sort that I don't know anything about yet

To circumvent this, I have tried a variety of alternative objects including metal, the eraser ends of pencils & Q-Tips. All to no avail

I tried searching the forum on this subject but haven't found anything that comes close to this

Anybody have any ideas as to what else I might try to make pointing, clicking, surfing, etc. on my phone a whole lot easier? I could sure use it

Cheers

Pat

 

[dan330]

1:
these are not like the old touch screens.. where anything will "register" a touch...

in these new screens ..only your warm body will trigger a touch... i think it is due to static / electric charge in the body.

there are pens that mimic a finger touch..
you can search online .. amazon or at a store like best buy.

2:
return the phone and get a phone with a trackball... but I think this is a dying feature in future phones

3:
if your phone has Gingerbread or higher android OS.. it should bring up a feature to let you be more precise ..

 

[chanchan05]

Its just a learning curve. On my first touch phone about a year ago it took me like 2 weeks to get used to controlling the phone effortlessly.

 

[PC Bigboy]

1:
there are pens that mimic a finger touch..
you can search online .. amazon or at a store like best buy.

Thanks for the tip. I'll check it out

My mom (Used to?) has/have a pointer for an old skool portable arcade game she used to play (I say "Used to" because I'm not sure if she still has it or not)

2:
return the phone and get a phone with a trackball... but I think this is a dying feature in future phones

It (Supposedly) has one. I say "Supposedly" because all it is is a button in the bottom middle portion of the phone between the CALL & END buttons below the Cricket logo

Besids, I couldn't even stand the one that was on an old Sprint phone I had (Which WAS NOT BTW) a smartphone anyway

3:
if your phone has Gingerbread or higher android OS.. it should bring up a feature to let you be more precise ..

Gingerbread? What's that (Besides sweet tasting bread & cookies )?? I can poke around in the settings to see if there's a way to reduce the sensitivity though (Need to find what I need to do to get rid of that STUPID keypad lock that's there when I activate the display anyway as that will do me no good in an emergency when I need to dial 911)

Cheers

Pat

 

[chanchan05]

1. Your old pointer will not work. Capacitive screens are a recent technology and basically any pointer older than a year or two wont work because they'd be designed for resistive screens

2. Gingerbread is the code name for Android 2.3. Basically its an alphabetical list of sweets. Cant remember what came before Cupcake (Butterscotch?), but it was followed by Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb (for Tablets), and this fall Ice Cream Sandwich should be released.

3. Some phones have an "emergency dial" at the bottom of the lockscreen. Or you can set up Pattern Lock as it has that.


Anyway, homescreen>menu>settings>location and security, you get to set screen locks.


EDIT: I dont get the "supposedly" part of the trackball. Why? Does it not work?

 

[PC Bigboy]

Its just a learning curve. On my first touch phone about a year ago it took me like 2 weeks to get used to controlling the phone effortlessly.

That may be but it's a little more difficult when your eye/hand coordination isn't the greatest

Plus, I've never been able to type on a keyboard properly to begin with so that too doesn't help (My teachers gave up trying to teach me that part of typing when I was in the 8th Grade ). Neither do the size of the buttons on the keyboard (Which BTW is an onscreen QWERTY keyboard)

Cheers

Pat

 

[PC Bigboy]

1. Your old pointer will not work. Capacitive screens are a recent technology and basically any pointer older than a year or two wont work because they'd be designed for resistive screens

Actually it was my Mom's pointer, but anyway.....

2. Gingerbread is the code name for Android 2.3. Basically its an alphabetical list of sweets. Cant remember what came before Cupcake (Butterscotch?), but it was followed by Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb (for Tablets), and this fall Ice Cream Sandwich should be released.

I see. I thought there was a "Sweet" connection to it

I'm on Android 2.21 but have automatic updates enabled

3. Some phones have an "emergency dial" at the bottom of the lockscreen. Or you can set up Pattern Lock as it has that.

No "Emergency dial" button on the startup screen (Just the lock & speaker). You would think that an Emergency button with a direct connection to local Police/Fire/EMS would be standard by default in ALL versions of Android OS but I guess not

Anyway, homescreen>menu>settings>location and security, you get to set screen locks.

Tried that. No luck

EDIT: I dont get the "supposedly" part of the trackball. Why? Does it not work?

In short, it doesn't move up, down or sideways but you can press it though

But like I said, it doesn't really matter because I hate trackballs anyway (Never could figure out how to work one)

Cheers

Pat

 

[dan330]

then you might try a different style keyboards..

there are some that add arrow keys to help you move the cursor around.

some with bigger keys...

get a phone with a bigger screen.. that is why I like the 4.3 inch screen on my EVO.

i also love my "swiftkey X" keyboard app.
this keyboard.. after you use it for a while.. it learns from your usage..and in your emails and texts.. of words you use and how you use them...
it then starts to predict the NEXT word...
i have typed full sentences by only selecting the words out of the list.. as they come up...it is pretty damn cool!!

 

[chanchan05]

Or since your phone is new, get a Droid with a physical keyboard, like the Desire Z.

 

[El Presidente]

You could get a capacitive stylus? I'd similar issues to you when I got my first touchscreen, I found a screen protector helped a great deal. It took a little bit of sensitivity out of the screen and made typing SMS etc much easier.

 

[PC Bigboy]

Or since your phone is new, get a Droid with a physical keyboard, like the Desire Z.

Why do that when I I could just as easily get an adapter for my USB keyboard & plug that in?

Besides, I got my phone so I could surf the net (Among other things) WITHOUT having to bring along part of my computer with me (I won't be able to do it most of the time anyway)

No offense intended but I kinda like the keyboard app idea much better

Cheers

Pat

 

[PC Bigboy]

You could get a capacitive stylus? I'd similar issues to you when I got my first touchscreen, I found a screen protector helped a great deal. It took a little bit of sensitivity out of the screen and made typing SMS etc much easier.

I suppose that's true but I need a keyboard with bigger buttons a whole lot more

Would work for enabling text fields like the ones in the browser however

Cheers

 

[Bob Maxey]

First off - Newbie here so please bear with me & be kind

Now to the subject at hand.....

Yesterday, I bought a Kyocera Sanyo Zio phone from the local Cricket store. Now I knew there would be a learning curve but there was one curve I wasn't really counting on

That being the ability to smoothly move about, type, point & click without ending up in no-mans land or creating typos

The reason - Big fingers & little SUPER SENSITIVE buttons

I honestly don't know how some people do it so effortlessly. It must be an art form of some sort that I don't know anything about yet

To circumvent this, I have tried a variety of alternative objects including metal, the eraser ends of pencils & Q-Tips. All to no avail

I tried searching the forum on this subject but haven't found anything that comes close to this

Anybody have any ideas as to what else I might try to make pointing, clicking, surfing, etc. on my phone a whole lot easier? I could sure use it

Cheers

Pat

DL "Big Buttons Keyboard." It is free (there is also a paid version) and it solved the same problems I had with the Zio (and Triumph). No need for a stylus.

Are you asking for a stylus that will work with the Zio's screen? I thought that as well but BB to the rescue.

 

[alostpacket]

I use this for my Tab10.1 sometimes, works great and cant go wrong for $2.30.

https://www.dealextreme.com/p/aluminum-alloy-touchpad-stylus-pen-for-apple-ipad-ipad-2-black-57797

It took like 3 weeks to arrive but for free shipping it was no biggie