swype or slideit?

[sookster54]

I used to like Swype but not anymore, I bought SlideIT altough expensive (wish it was $5-6 instead) but it's good and lets you add new words on the fly.

 

[kopkiwi]

To be honest at the moment I am loving the paid gingerbread keyboard from the market. The ability to alter the size of the keys and layout is awesome.

 

[Vicdude]

I'm a SlideIT fan. Had it for about 4 months and I am now at the stage where it irritates me to watch people tap out a text. It seems such an unnecessary and dare I say it...ancient... way of inputting data.
ALL of my friends initially resisted as they didn't like the change but after 2 or 3 texts, they got the hang of it. It's 50-50 though, I'm sure Swype has it's following because it's free

 

[Kibbster]

Well I'm one of those that tried both Swype and SlideIT for a few days and both got so far up my chuff with selecting individual words, punctuation, abbreviations etc that I went back to the standard Android Tap keyboard.
For me the longer time taken to tap is balanced by the fact that very few words will be wrong or misspelt and punctuation is more accurate.
I can live with tapping, I can't live with a keyboard that seems to have a mind of it's own and often gets it wrong.

 

[wildrose]

It seems such an unnecessary and dare I say it...ancient... way of inputting data.

Neither Desire is my first phone with any kind of keyboard, so I'm all into alternative keyboards - loving MessagEase! Trying to tap with 2 fingers what I usually use 10 to do on a miniscule qwerty keyboard had me defeated. Tried stock, SlideIt, and KeyPurr. Once I learned MessagEase, I've found it simple and efficient. I like that punctuation and characters are always available on the main letter keys. Developers are very active with new features (most recent is colours - wheeee). If you can un-learn your usual qwerty then I recommend trying MessagEase.

 

[Kibbster]

Neither Desire is my first phone with any kind of keyboard, so I'm all into alternative keyboards - loving MessagEase! Trying to tap with 2 fingers what I usually use 10 to do on a miniscule qwerty keyboard had me defeated. Tried stock, SlideIt, and KeyPurr. Once I learned MessagEase, I've found it simple and efficient. I like that punctuation and characters are always available on the main letter keys. Developers are very active with new features (most recent is colours - wheeee). If you can un-learn your usual qwerty then I recommend trying MessagEase.

That keyboard looks a bit radical for me

 

[Dudditz]

Love Swype to be honest.

 

[RedBob62]

Judging from the posts it looks like the jury is split as to which is better. What is also clear is that they are both pretty good products. I would therefore suggest that anyone who wants to try them out starts with swype as it is free. If they like it then stick with it, if not give slideIT a try. As for my views, I like swype and found it very intuitive and easy to get the hang of.

 

[chris 290]

SlideIT has punctuation on main keys now. SlideIT is very close to swype, but being able to input a two letter code for a large input of text like email or a password is a great feature.

Don't get the punctuation comment as you can set it up anyway you like in the settings.

I find typing fast and accurate using SlideIT and have used it for months. I have tried swype and other kb but always go back to SlideIT.

 

[SiHa]

Neither Desire is my first phone with any kind of keyboard, so I'm all into alternative keyboards - loving MessagEase! Trying to tap with 2 fingers what I usually use 10 to do on a miniscule qwerty keyboard had me defeated. Tried stock, SlideIt, and KeyPurr. Once I learned MessagEase, I've found it simple and efficient. I like that punctuation and characters are always available on the main letter keys. Developers are very active with new features (most recent is colours - wheeee). If you can un-learn your usual qwerty then I recommend trying MessagEase.

Yes, I tried Messagease for a while. Initially, I did like it. It's quite a steep learning curve, but after practicing with a text-speed app I got quite quick, but never quite as fast as the stock k/b. Probably because I don't text enough. Still slower than Swype IMEHO though.
Looking at these comments I might have to give SlideIt a quick 15 minute play...

 

[lexluthor]

I'm thinking of giving SlideIT a try.

I'm sick of how with Swype, there's no way to stop it from adding typed out words into the dictionary. I have so many mis-entered words like "thisd" and "whenb" and stuff like that in my dictionary.

Does SlideIT do that too?

 

[sare99]

I haven't used Swype to be fair but have to say I am loving SlideIT and would never go back to stock or tap only.

UPDATE:
I downloaded the Swype Beta after reading through here and have been using it for the past few days.

I do think both apps are much of a muchness to be fair and whilst I prefer Swype's black fascia over Slide IT's white one and like the fact Swype adds new words automatically I also love SlideIT's screen full of smilies plus I'm more fluid on SlideIT and it has an easily accessible "Hide" button (I had to hit the Swype forums in order to find out how to minimise their k/board).

One thing which might seal the deal for some of you though is that neither app can be moved to the SD card (at the mo?) and SlideIt takes up a very demure 3.71MB of available phone memory whereas Swype is hogging 12.44MB effectively to give you the same outcome.

 

[Kibbster]

whereas Swype is hogging 12.44MB effectively to give you the same outcome.

That is a hell of a lot of memory for a keyboard when you are against the wall with memory on the Desire anyway!
It's probably the fact it adds every mistyped word to the dictionary meaning a fat and bloated (and mostly unneeded) dictionary.
I don't use it now anyway, but if I wasn't rooted I wouldn't have gone near it with a barge pole.

 

[SiHa]

One thing which might seal the deal for some of you though is that neither app can be moved to the SD card (at the mo?) and SlideIt takes up a very demure 3.71MB of available phone memory whereas Swype is hogging 12.44MB effectively to give you the same outcome.

Umm, my Swype install takes up 1.32MB + 100KB for the installer.

 

[DC E1G]

I'm a swype guy, but I wouldn't say it's a whole lot faster than regular typing with two hands in landscape. It's just easier and can be done with less attention focused on it. Personally that's why I use it.

I'm still waiting for a way to delete all the stupid crap words I'll never use installed in the dictionary by default. Other than that it's pretty slick though. And it sure impresses people.

 

[bryandrummer]

I'm thinking of giving SlideIT a try.

I'm sick of how with Swype, there's no way to stop it from adding typed out words into the dictionary. I have so many mis-entered words like "thisd" and "whenb" and stuff like that in my dictionary.

Does SlideIT do that too?

no. you have to manually add words to the dictionary after you tap out new words. this is the number one reason i prefer slidit. I had the same issue because am pretty split between tapping in landscape and sliding and had alot of auto added misspelled words