On my PC, I can set the scrolling to do 1, 3 or 6 lines per click, or a full page, why are those two medium size scrolls not available on a WM device?

Oh, and why don’t they all have the jog dial on the side?

It sounds like you’re asking for more than just the hardware — you want a settings applet to configure its behavior (or, more difficult, different behaviors depending on your context).

I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, but you may want to clarify exactly what you hope for.

Steve

I do a lot of news and E-book reading on my PPC, and scrolling with the D-pad is not the best way, since it only allows for scrolling one line or one page at a time, while I would like to scroll one paragraph at a time, even half a page would be nice.

How hard can it be to put a small wheel on the side of a PPC?

My main concern is that I really like being able to map buttons in various applications (media players, Resco audio recorder, etc.) to do things like start, stop, skip forward or backward, turn on and off the screen, change the volume, etc. If you don’t have buttons, you can’t map buttons to do those functions, and that’s really unfortunate.

That (and games, as TOCA mentioned) are why we need buttons. In fact, I’ve long wished that devices include more hardware buttons, not fewer.

Of course, with larger screens (like 240×400), you could probably make a virtual button pad for games. It wouldn’t be too bad for gaming, because you’re always looking at the screen. For controlling applications without looking at the device, though, it wouldn’t help at all.

@siemens

If it it is designed for one handed operation, then finger friendly has some sense, but still – in that case hardware buttens will be much better so you don’t have to look where your finger are.

Touchscreen devices are inherently two-handed devices — one to hold the device, the other to touch the screen. If you want a one-handed device, look at Windows Mobile Standard (Smartphone), which is entirely controlled by buttons.

The problem with that is that you can’t scroll quickly. Navigating a long Web page with only up/down buttons is tedious. Scroll bars making navigating much faster.

Steve

Seriously, I have gotten used to use both D-pad and a few shortcut HW buttons on my devices, I don’t think it will be easy to reverse that. Maybe it all depends on how you use your device, and for what?

Mapping hardware keys just makes things that much faster.

If it it is designed for one handed operation, then finger friendly has some sense, but still – in that case hardware buttens will be much better so you don’t have to look where your finger are.

For two handed operation, a stylus give a much more precise feel.

Finger friendly is really all fashion and no sense but for the simplest of tasks.

My main concern is that I really like being able to map buttons in various applications (media players, Resco audio recorder, etc.) to do things like start, stop, skip forward or backward, turn on and off the screen, change the volume, etc. If you don’t have buttons, you can’t map buttons to do those functions, and that’s really unfortunate.