After my post yesterday discussing my experience typing on the Note 4 and selecting text, several commenters asked why I wasn’t using the S Pen stylus for that task. In truth, it had been a little neglected, so I set myself to properly exploring its text input possibilities.
I can’t draw anything more complex than a stick figure and my handwriting is at best semi-legible, which is why the S Pen has been less of a priority for me. For faux typing purposes, the Note 4 offers an option where you write one word at a time and it recognises each word in turn.
This turns out to be relatively accurate. Here’s a test I did, writing out the lyrics to ABBA’s ‘The Winner Takes It All’ without making any corrections as I went:
There are some clangers (“lokrshphy” for “loser standing”), but overall that’s a good effort.
I wrote most of this morning’s story about Visual Studio using the pen. What I found less helpful was that in handwriting recognition mode, you don’t see guesses about what the next word will be until you’ve tapped to confirm the word is correct, which slows things down.
More surprisingly, I didn’t really find the pen any more helpful for positioning the cursor than my finger, and it still wants to paste far too often. Overall, it feels like a solid alternative, but not one that I’d automatically choose over the others.
Here’s the expected video of my accommodation — very Gold Coast:
Having a kitchen meant I could cook my own dinner, though it wasn’t very elaborate:
Today I fly from the Gold Coast to Melbourne, which puts me back into a saner time zone. While both Jetstar and Virgin fly that route direct, the cheapest flight turned out to be Qantas via Sydney. So this is what my morning will look like:
Lifehacker’s Note 4 Roadtrip series is sponsored by Samsung.
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