TouchPal 2.0

How fast can you type on a computer keyboard? I'm pretty quick, in fact sometimes I have no idea no idea what what I'm typing what I'm typing. How about texting on your phone? I have my mobile phone on predictive text but I'm sure it's set to a different language. What TouchPal offers is a keyboard solution to all your messaging problems.

Thumb-friendly, single-hand input, related words not just predictive - these are the selling points of TouchPal and you can watch a YouTube demonstration by visiting the cootek website. It is in fact incredibly usable and promises a typing speed of 300 characters per min. Let me tell you you'll need a bit of practice before you get to that level. But the related word features is different to predictive text and does seem a better solution - it works by understanding the whole word you are inputting rather than the individual letters and suggesting a drop-down list of associated words. The keyboard is based on the 'Qwerty' layout (taking two adjacent letters of a keyboard and putting them in one button). You choose the letter by thumbing the button - one tap selects the left hand letter eg Q, two taps, the right one eg W. Drag your thumb up and you make the letter a capital. Also very good is the delete function which allows you to extend or shrink a selection bar before choosing to erase. TouchPal takes some getting used to but the design and functionality of the software makes for some very fast typing.