The problem with touch screen keyboards are that they, for one reason or another, slow to use. If you’ve never come across the concept of “swipe” keyboards, the idea is that that you don’t life your finger and simply drag your finger across the keys – it’s quicker but the software has to be smarter as a result.

There are a couple in the market, ShapeWriter being my favourite (but this is no longer available). The other is SlideIT, but I found the GUI horribly off-putting. However, Swype (which is now being bundled on some phones at launch) is now available as a free Beta to try out. It’s not in the marketplace, so you have to get it via their website.

Swype is quick, but seems to lack some of the features of ShapeWriter that I like – for example, not needing to indicate repeated letters and one key to change case. I’ll try both and report back 😉