Struggles with Samsung H1 touch UI

Rating: Canalys report says I’m not alone

It says something about a user interface when you’re forced to trawl Google to look for the handset’s manual. Sadly, that’s what has happened with the Vodafone 360 H1. GoMo News has the correct URL is anyone’s interested here http://tinyurl.com/y9omelp.

You’ll need that URL because there’s currently a bugette on the Vodafone 360 web site where the URL points to a non-existent point on the  Samsung download centre. The 360 support crew kindly supplied me with the correct URL (above) and are working to fix the problem.

Personally, I’m building up consumer resist to finger-based touchscreens and am trying to establish why this is. Perhaps it’s because adult male fingers are too big for the typical finger-based model like the Samsung H1?

The research doesn’t bear this out, however. Canalys recently released a report that found that I may be in the minority being male but not a minority of over 45s.

The report says,  “Interest in finger-centric touchscreens varied little across demographic groups, tariff types and countries, reinforcing the view that they have mass-market appeal.

Men showed a slightly higher preference than women – 40 per cent versus 35 per cent. Those aged between 22 and 45 were more positive.”

The most controversial finding was this … “Of those for whom this [touch] was already their primary method of interacting with the phone, only 47 per cent said they would choose the same type of UI on their next model.”

What this suggests to me is that males are aspiring to be seen with the very latest gismos and that includes Touchscreen handsets but over half haven’t enjoyed the experience.

Significantly, the report suggests that HTC and Apple are the most liked touchscreen UIs but there’s another clue in the report. Those who were most hostile to finger-centric UIs were those who had opted for a stylus based touch UI.

Aha. Perhaps this is the Ghost of the palm Pilot – which I loved – coming back to haunt me. That was a stylus and handwriting recognition device which I took the time to master.

Maybe I need to investigate stylus based handsets more closely? Meanwhile I’ve dug out my stylus to see if that might help with input.

*Sorry. Stylus won’t work at all.*

Tony is based in Surrey and is a veteran journalist he writes on the UK market…. contact him here mailto:tony@mobileinsight.co.uk