Tuesday, January 07, 2003



Fitaly


FitalyStamp version 3, which is OS5 compatible, has now been launched. I was a dedicated user on my m505. As I commented in my review last year, it is not only the extra speed, but the length of text that you can enter with Fitaly which makes the difference. With Fitaly Stamp I was happy to write several hundred words at a sitting, but with graffiti I tire after about 20-30 words. That is fine for adding and editing apppointments, addresses and to-dos, but no good for capturing those big ideas. I will be trying out Fitaly3 on my TT as soon as I can get the stickers across the Atlantic.

Meanwhile, they have sent me the results of their latest speed input contest. The test consists of entering a pre-determined and memorized sentence as fast as possible. The input rate is then calculated in wpm. The winners in the three main categories were:

CategoryMethodSpeedWinner
Pocket PCFitaly - Pocket PC78.25 wpmJenneth Orantia
ThumboardsTreo Thumboard84.00 wpmJim Belich
Palm HandheldsFitalyStamp - Palm73.55 wpmPatrick Yam


Myself, I get about 24 wpm in graffiti and 45-50 wpm with FitalyStamp, so these guys were really flying. It is interesting that the Treo did so well, which justifies to some degree the move to thumboards that many manufacturers are making. The average speed for Fitaly, combining PPC and Palm entries, was 59.13 wpm. There were only 6 thumboard entries and they averaged at 57.98 wpm. The 4 entries using a stylus on a qwerty keyboard averaged at 31.09. So the moral seems to be that if you want to use a stylus, get a custom-designed layout like Fitaly or MessageEase, otherwise use a thumboard. However, I would not want to enter 500 words on a thumboard without taking a rest.