[coolskierguy]

The new 9000 series bb is rumored to possibly have a touch screen and I see other talk and speculation on forums and blackberry news sites about how RIM may be considering touch screens...

WHY do people want a full-screen touch screen, or a touch screen at all for that matter, on their bb.s? Have any of you tried to use the iPhone's touchpad to type an email, or to type anything while you are driving or doing anything else at the same time??

It seems to me the touchscreen is the deal-killer when considering an iPhone, how can people be saying that the touchscreen is a requisite for any new "iPhone killer" devices? How does the touchscreen enhance the experience on an all-in-one device at all?? Is everyone just mesmerized by the sleek appearance that a touch screen allows or am I missing something?

[amiquilena]

The only way I could have a full sized multitouch screen is...if it has a full qwerty keyboard like SE's XPERIA ( or however you spell it ) that you can slide and use.

I used my iPhone for a week and decided to sell it because of that, I hated typing an sms or doing any typing input for that matter, hated it.

I also believe Touch screens are way overrated. It's not like the technology is new or groundbreaking

[Gadgetgeek]

No touchscreen for this addict!

[hal737]

Fingerprints drive me nuts soo there is pretty much no way I could have a touch screen for that reason alone.

I attempted to type a text message on the iphone and it was impossible for me. I suppose you could get used to it but i prefer typing super fast and accurate over misspelled and fingerprinty.

LG came out with the Voyager for Verizon and it is pretty cool. It has the touchscreen and the full keyboard that you can use when you open the phone. Not a bad device but I still prefer my bberry clean and shiny.

[radimus]

I think you're missing something.

Combined with a proper interface, a touch screen can be very efficient. It allows the developer to streamline the interface for the application rather than making it adhere to a fixed set of controls. For example, if you have a touchscreen and your app is an audio player you can put a big PLAY button right on the screen. You can also put big << or >> buttons and a volume slider you can work with your thumb. Under the BB's current UI paradigm you need to put all of this on the ribbon menu or assign it to a shortcut keys. Because every application has a different set of shortcut keys, people quit trying to remember them all outside of those for one or two apps they use the most and just default to the ribbon menu for everything else.

But, like I said, the interface has to be designed for it. That will be the challenge for RIM if they introduce a touch screen device. I'm interested to see what they come up with.

I can agree about touchscreen keyboards being undesireable for typing emails. Physical keys are much faster due to their tactile feedback. I have a software keyboard on my Tilt that works pretty well with thumbs, but if I need to do anything beyond pressing letters to filter a list of contacts or type a short word or two I slide out the qwerty.

[daver42]

I think RIM's got the experience and design know-how to develop a touchscreen only model, and I'm excited to see what they've in store. I'm sure we'll continue to see QWERTY and SureType devices as well. Folks shouldn't freak out about the touchscreen. It makes good sense to develop a device that would appeal to certain crowds, in this case, the touchscreen fans. It doesn't make good business sense however to just suddenly dump QWERTY and SureType - two technologies RIM's excelled at and have a huge, loyal, customer base. My guess is we'll see four tiers in the BB product line: Pearl, Curve, WorldEdition, and Touch(whatever).

[mje5270]

Not a big fan of fingerprints on my screens, either, so no touch screen for me. I'd turn into Monk almost overnight.

Touch screens obviously work for a number of folks, though, so I don't think it hurts for RIM to stay competitive with the market. As long as they offer a range of options (touch screen, qwerty, hybrid), I'm good to go.

[lsumrell]

Don't like the touch screens. If I did, I would not have bought a BB.

[Adlen]

I don't like touch screens but I suppose it'll rope in new customers for the novelty of touch. Think about the hype to iPhone got because you can stroke it and play Lynyrd Skynyrd.

[twmayben]

The biggest drawback to me is that any interaction with a touchscreen device requires looking directly at it. You have to stop what you're doing and look at the screen to accept or decline a call, for instance. I have an iPod touch and the interface is fantastic -- but it's just my media player. With my Curve, I can answer and hang up just by feel. I can change the volume by feel. I can find the "1" key and dial voicemail by feel. And on and on...

[Skyys]

Good point Radimus. I wouldn't mind a touchscreen if RIM would to it right and I have confidence in them that they would.

[JonnyCerv]

Just purchased the Pearl.....and considering it's probably a lower-end BB model.....I still think it surpasses the IPHONE. (don't get me wrong...I think the pearl is perfect...especially for personal users)

THe BBs are completely customizable with endless amounts of downloads, etc.

I agree...touchscreen is too much of a pain in the A$$ than anything else.

Just my .02

[JazzeeJEF]

Touchscreens are overrated!!!

[Libuff]

i apreciate everyones feelings about finger prints and UI changes involved in a touch screen BB, but you're all missing one BIG thing... screen real-estate. one thing the Iphone does well is have LOTS of screen real-estate to fiddle with.

i personally picked an 8830we, because of the Push mail (important for my job), and the service (verizon vs at&t). now with all the outages with the BIS service, the PUSH mail is less than reliable these days, i'm starting to ponder the question again...

IF RIM were to make a touch screen (full screen) model similar to the BB or the VZW LG phone (the name escapes me), i would prob buy it day #1, the keyboard on the 8830 is large, and takes up more than 50% of the phone. by that math, the screen is less important than the keyboard is...

Hires images are NOT a priority on the BB it seems.
Multimedia is also NOT a priority it seems.
TRUE internet browsing is also NOT a priority it seems.

i hate to be the dissenting voice, but someone had to

[coolskierguy]

Sweet, I agree with most things people have said here, I understand that the interfacing with an mp3 player would be cool with a touchscreen, and a full-device-sized-screen would be cool for watching videos or surfing the net...

..but I think any all-in-one, iPhone-esque device will necessarily still act primarily as a phone/email/internet device that conveniently incorporates multimedia extras,

I agree strongly with 'twmayben' that its a crucial error to design a phone that you have to look at just to dial your voicemail or make a phone call or send a txt, or other simple functions that we are all used to doing with our eyes closed (or with our eyes on the road or the business meeting etc)

a followup question for skyys / daver42 / radimus / whoever, how do you picture RIM overcoming the problem of typing on a touchscreen?

My only ideas (which I was Shocked both weren't incorporated into the iPhone) are to first obviously incorporate vibration feedback , and then to revert back to a 9 (or 12) button interface (the '1' key for abc, '2' key for def, etc) & predictive text, so that there are less buttons to press...it seems impossible to me that a full qwerty would ever be usable on a touchscreen device that fits in my pocket, eh?

[cinnamin]

i for one don't want a touchscreen phone what would people do if they drop the phone and the screen breaks not everyone likes to pay for insurance

[suprsonic]

For multimedia reasons like browsing photos, music or even the internet for that matter can be very handy but as far as typing I will stick to the tactical feel of an actually keypad.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[anon(1109695)]

I had an HTC mogul for one week before selling it on eBay and getting a Blackberry Pearl instead. Yeah, a touch screen was nice, but I really did not like the idea of not having any "hard" buttons on the device for basic activities...like dialing a phone number. Isn't that why we have these things anyway...instead just a straight PDA? The Mogul was a really nice PDA, and a so-so phone. Very Windows-like and intuitive, but the fact that the phone was so weak was a show-stopper.

I probably could have lived with the lack of hard buttons, but the Sprint version of the device did not have voice command and the voice recognition (where I recorded my own voice and assigned tags to entries in my address book or to launch apps) was horrible...it refused to work reliably over a bluetooth headset. That was another show-stopper: the whole purpose of having that functionality in the first place is so that you can have a HANDS-FREE phone when driving and be more productive.

Ultimately, the lack of voice command functionality proved to be the fatal flaw. I just don't have time to record voice tags for 200+ numbers in my phone list, or to have them not work over my bluetooth headset reliably after I spend all that time recording tags. I ditch the Mogul, switched to a Blackberry Pearl, and am a much happier camper. The voice command functionality on my 8130 Pearl works very reliably on my bluetooth headset. I love being able to just say the phone number and have it connect.

So, although during the first few days of owning my blackberry I kept trying to touch the screen or reach for the stylus, I'm getting used to the trackball and don't find that the lack of a touchscreen is really all that big of a deal.

I also loaded the FlipSide software to turn my Pearl into a wanna-be iPod, and I suppose a touch screen would have been nice to just swipe through my music using the album covers. But personally, I really don't find the factory media player to be all that bad. In most ways, the factory player was easier to use and the controls were more intuitive than FlipSide. The cover flow artwork was nice, but not much else was very intuitive about the FlipSide user interface, so I elected not to buy it after the 3-day trial period. I was using v1.04. Maybe v1.07 is better...don't know.

[Bionic Berry]

Finally, another person that understands that touch screens are great to showoff at the local martini bar, but lousy for any other reason. This is another reason why the Voyager by Verizon has the IPhone beat. Personally, I wouldn't want either, but for sake of arguement, the Voyager is champion. At any rate, Black Berry all the way.

[Libuff]

now can the voyager have the ability to be expandable or is like every other VZW phone and just do what it does...

give me an iphone with PUSH Email, give me 3rd Party apps, and Verizon Service, that would be my perfect phone!

[cate]

i'm not going to lie... i was looking at Verizon's Voyager the other day and i kinda (sort-of kinda) drooled.

am i horrible?

[RCW5]

I played with an I phone for a while but I agree with most here about not being a fan of the touch screen. I went back to my Q for a while then discovered the wonderful world of Berries.

[feetr2c]

I had two AT&T Tilts and BOTH had digitizer problems. Half the time I would have to tap the screen multiple times before the device would react. When I had the same problem with the second one, I took it back to AT&T and got the Curve instead. By far the sweetest phone I've ever had. The little qwerty kb is a blast to type on and I love the tactile feel that touchscreens lack. I so love my BB that if it broke today I'd buy a new one tomorrow. I'll never go back to a windows mobile device again. Some might like touch screens and if RIM starts making them, that's fine -- as long as they continue to make the conventional style BB for the rest of us.

[tbk74]

Having used both phones I would take my Curve over an Iphone any day! The UI is not as user friendly on the Iphone. I couldn't agree more feetr2c!

[GregFF]

Let me say that typing on the i-phone is a headache. There is no feel. You gotta press that backspace key too much. Touch screens are not for typing. I am a construction professional. The i-phone touch screen is a bit too cute and glassy for my environment