Trouble with touch screens

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Piper_

I have, and agree with him. (Sony & kindle keyboard.)

You can keep thumb rested on a button and only give a little pressure to turn page.
Can't do that w/touch. Must move thumb, and if thumb is being used to stabilize device, moving it becomes unstable. Not a problem for everyone, but if you have to read while flat on back or other weird positions, it's annoying.

If you hold the Touch with your thumb on the edge of the bezel, it takes only a small rolling movement of your thumb to turn the page. Just as easy as pressing a button.

[Billi]

Originally Posted by Crowl

... companies would much prefer to drop any point of mechanical failure like physical buttons because it reduces the points of failure on the device.

I don't think that it is this way round. As touch screens can also fail it reduces the number of alternatives.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Billi

I don't think that it is this way round. As touch screens can also fail it reduces the number of alternatives.

A touch screen, though, is a purely electronic component with no moving parts. As such, I would guess that its failure rate is lower than that of a mechanical switch.

[Billi]

Do you really think so???

(Maybe it is a language question. With failures I don't mean that touch screens stop functioning at all. I mean all the little quirks and problems people describe for instance in this thread. Contrary to buttons, touch screens do seem to have very much a head of their own if and when and how they want to react.)

[HarryT]

Sorry, yes, I was referring to situations where the touch screen "breaks".

I find the IR touch screen of the Kindle Touch to be extremely reliable in use. I never get unwanted page turns, or anything of that nature.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

So it looks like all those of us who don't care for touch screens are being left behind. If you want the newest features - front lit, better screen - , you've gotta go touch.

I sometimes feel like I'm the only one who doesn't like touch screens. I'm sure I could get used to them, except a lot of the time they don't work for me. On my Droid smartphone, I mostly have to use a stylus to get it to recognize the touch. If somebody calls me on my phone, by the time I can get it to pick up, the other person has given up and I have to call them back.

(as a side note, I can't wear watches, either - they'll stop after a few months. If I take the watch off and leave it in my drawer, they'll start up again after a few more months)

Am I the only one who has this kind of problem?

Eat some Red Meat!

[Billi]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Sorry, yes, I was referring to situations where the touch screen "breaks".

Sorry, too! Obviously I should have used a better word.

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If you hold the Touch with your thumb on the edge of the bezel, it takes only a small rolling movement of your thumb to turn the page. Just as easy as pressing a button.

On the Kobo, you can only do one direction that way, and which direction it is depends on which hand you're holding the device with. Otherwise you need to reach half way across the screen or swipe. Okay, normally you want to go forwards, but it's still kind of annoying.

I'm guessing the Kindle software is better designed. I always get the feeling with Kobo that the programmers don't read books.

I will admit, though, that I sometimes tap the screen on my kindle keyboard when I forget which device I'm using.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

On the Kobo, you can only do one direction that way, and which direction it is depends on which hand you're holding the device with. Otherwise you need to reach half way across the screen or swipe. Okay, normally you want to go forwards, but it's still kind of annoying.

That would also be true with buttons, though. If you had your thumb on the "Page Forward" button, you'd have to move it to do a "Page Back".

I can only imagine the agonies those people who worry about moving their thumb a fraction of an inch must have gone through when turning the page of a paper book .

[DustyDisks]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That would also be true with buttons, though. If you had your thumb on the "Page Forward" button, you'd have to move it to do a "Page Back".

I can only imagine the agonies those people who worry about moving their thumb a fraction of an inch must have gone through when turning the page of a paper book .

Think of the "Gasp" calories that are burned doing that!

[elemenoP]

Originally Posted by DustyDisks

Think of the "Gasp" calories that are burned doing that!

You mean if I read a pbook, I'm exercising?? Sweet, I'm going back to pbooks!

eP

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If you hold the Touch with your thumb on the edge of the bezel, it takes only a small rolling movement of your thumb to turn the page. Just as easy as pressing a button.

I totally agree. I have a 650 and I have used the physical page turn buttons maybe 3 times in almost a year.

[Piper_]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If you hold the Touch with your thumb on the edge of the bezel, it takes only a small rolling movement of your thumb to turn the page. Just as easy as pressing a button.

For most people. But for those of us with thin or shaky fingers or who move around too much... Well, I can't keep my thumb that close to the screen without accidentally turning pages. It's why I gave up trying to use my Sony.

Originally Posted by HarryT

That would also be true with buttons, though. If you had your thumb on the "Page Forward" button, you'd have to move it to do a "Page Back".

But the thumb is still kept resting there on the outer edge.

Originally Posted by HarryT

I can only imagine the agonies those people who worry about moving their thumb a fraction of an inch must have gone through when turning the page of a paper book .

Well, actually, yes. My hands are very weak and shaky, so I did have a very hard time reading paper books -- when I even made the attempt.

My kindle restored my ability to enjoy reading again, thanks to these touches that wouldn't have seemed important to me either, until I needed them.

I *love* my Samsung 2 tablet, but I'd be lost without the Swype keyboard on it. Even with it, it takes me forever to type anything legible. Trying to edit, hit a link, or highlight a word on it or a touch reader is... argh.

At least my kindle had text_to-speech, and my Galaxy Tab lets me use Ivona text-to-speech. :thumbup:

I know people like me are a minority, and I'd never want to restrict tech to catering to us, but I'm really happy Amazon has kept the k3 in their lineup for us.
I just hope they give it needed updates to it.

Eta: please forgive typos, etc. Tapatalk won't let me preview, and see above re editing.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I totally agree. I have a 650 and I have used the physical page turn buttons maybe 3 times in almost a year.

In fairness though, the PRS505 and 300 were really the last readers Sony designed where buttons were the primary means of turning pages. It seems to me they were included on the PRS650 and later readers purely as a secondary method. On my 505 I generally don't even think about the buttons when I am using it... but if I read with my wife's 650 I do... because their position is just plain awkward.

--
Bill

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by HarryT

A touch screen, though, is a purely electronic component with no moving parts. As such, I would guess that its failure rate is lower than that of a mechanical switch.

I am not sure. How often do you have a key fail on a computer keyboard? Granted, your experience might be different, but I can't remember ever having a computer where the keyboard was the first thing to start experiencing problems.. and only once did I have a hard drive fail (And that was easily replaced, that computer still runs).

My guess is that on all of these readers, the screen and the battery are far and away the biggest sources of early failures (the screen because of abuse.. the battery just because of the nature of the beast).

--
Bill