New Phone - niggles

[GStadium]

I just got my HTC Desire yesterday. In general I'm impressed, but there are some niggles.

A major one is typing. Last night I found that landscape mode was only supported in some applications. As I have very stubby fingers, this is a major problem for me. When I was trying to type in the long WPA password for my wireless router at home last night, I had to make about ten attempts, because the wrong key kept appearing, the input was then hidden, and the tick box on the "Show password" option was hidden under the keyboard graphic! Why doesn't the Desire rotate to landscape for things like this? Is there a simple way to make it do so?

The other one is switching off. I don't like to keep pressing the power button every minute, but I also don't want the display to stay on full brightness. Is there a way to make the display dim to a minimum after the time out, so that touching the screen and pulling down the lock would revive it? An app or widget to do this, perhaps? This is how my old Nokia behaved and it had good battery life, even with wi-fi, Bluetooth etc.

Thanks for any help.

--
John H

 

[matttye]

For your first problem, the key that you hit pops up in a box above your thumb each time you hit a key. Look at this box to see if you got the wrong key and if so, just go back and correct it.

You can also try typing with the tip of your thumb rather than the flat.

As for number two, the Desire loves to guzzle battery. I get a days use out of it so it's acceptable to me, but I would seriously check how your battery lasts without the screen on before you consider having the screen on all the time. When you have widgets updating, emails coming in, texts and calls, etc, it makes short work of the battery.

To make the unlock procedure a little quicker you can hit the power button and then menu instead of sliding to unlock if you like.

 

[GStadium]

Thanks for the advice. I realised that the key accepted in the password displays for a second, but this is still a cumbersome way to type passwords if the key widths are smaller than the width of your fingers (and I have flat fingertips as well...).

I find myself constantly hitting the power button to switch the phone back on during a session, so maybe I should just increase the timeout and reduce the display brightness to compensate.