N8 tips & tricks: Improve your QWERTY keyboard experience
Yesterday I wrote a post listing the 20 things I love and 5 things I don’t in regards to the Nokia N8. I personally love the fact that Nokia personnel reached out to me regarding the things that I personally don’t like at the moment as it shows me they really do care and are listening. I don’t consider myself that important for Nokia to pay so much attention to, but appreciate their assistance.
After Chanse Arrington reached out to me via Twitter to offer the following comment, I tried what he said and would like to give him a hug 
For the best experience on N8 in landscape keyboard options turn on word completion, prediction, and text correction to “show suggestion”
I figured out how to enable what he suggested and saw that I had just tried the prediction on method at first and found that to be a failure. I will list the exact steps below because it isn’t as simple as you might think and IMHO the N8 units should come setup like this out of the box.
You might think you just go into settings and find something for keyboard to make these selections, but you would be wrong. The hidden settings sprinkled throughout the operating system is one area that Nokia needs to address in the future, but since I am a geek I know to keep hunting until I find what I need so here is what I recommend you do with your N8:
- Launch Notes and tap to create a new one.
- Rotate your N8 into landscape orientation. This MUST be done to access the proper settings.
- Tap the 3 line key between the forward arrow and return key.
- Tap Input options>Activate prediction.
- Again tap the 3 line key.
- Tap Input options>Settings.
- In here tap to turn on word auto-completion, text correction level to high, and text correction mode to show suggestion.
However, I tried to make it clear in my post that the keyboard itself isn’t that bad, but it is the way it is implemented where you have to jump into a completely different keyboard entry area out of apps to enter text and there is no smaller QWERTY in portrait mode.
20 Comments to N8 tips & tricks: Improve your QWERTY keyboard experience
Hmph, that makes a big difference… I like it =)
ShaunOctober 14, 2010
Perhaps some enterprising 3rd party could hook into the keyboard API and replace the standard keyboard with a better one that doesn’t cover the entire screen and does portrait qwerty mode.
uluN8October 14, 2010
Thanks, very helpfull.
EnzroOctober 14, 2010
thanks for that, but i maybe giving up on Nokia. I am having a horrible time trying to purchase the N8. the website either cancels my order or there is an error and no one on the phone can help. 
JakobOctober 14, 2010
Hi Matthew, I’ve been loving my N8 and turning on that feature was very helpful too, thanks. I had a question though, on US version do you have in the Web TV section the CNN and E tv apps? Does your European version have it? How can we get in the U.S. do you think? Thank you.
There is no CNN or ETV apps on the US one, while the Euro evaluation unit had them. I don’t understand why they are missing and why we can’t get them either. Will let you know if I find out anything.
ZaneOctober 14, 2010
Hey Mathew,
This is just a request from an N8 user. Could you do some posts dedicated to new apps or cool apps for the N8? I have been waiting for the previusly widely available Symbian apps to be available, but they arent yet.
In addition, many of the apps in the Ovi Magazine specifically mentioned for the N8, are not even in the store here in the US ! I am extremely surprised, if you flick through the virtual pages you will see what I mean when click on the active links on the magazine.
Also, I am still waiting for the IM solution from Nokia, Ovi chat that was shown in beta by Davis Fields. That too is not available. Any idea when it will be here?
Appreciate it if you can accommodate this request, I and many others have.
Thanks!
JakobOctober 14, 2010
Ok, that exactly what I figured. It’s just so Ironic that the two American products could not make it our shores. My guess is that it has to arbitrary restrictions by cell phone players already established in the States. All the carriers are now pushing their mobile TV apps…maybe Nokia was restricted…
I noticed the same thing looking at the magazine, although I feel its only a matter of time. A lot of the symbian^3 specific games too aren’t there. Not even Sims 3 but I think they are coming.
ZedOctober 14, 2010
Shocked at this review..shows how disconnected the USA is from most of the phones around the world. Many of the tasks above that frustrated you were due to the ‘closed’ OS your used to from APPLE.
Jesus RodriguezOctober 15, 2010
Does this suggestion will work in other language, i.e. spanish?
MeOctober 15, 2010
@Enzro
Try calling in and placing a new order; I believe it is option 1. Don’t bother with oprtion 2 for an existing order, they can’t do anything in terms of payment, so might as well as forget about that. The order group should be able to get it through. You may also want to take the known total and call your credit card company prior and tell them to allow that charge. You may need to speak to their fraud department directly.
October 19, 2010
[...] to Chanse’s feedback I posted on how to make your N8 keyboard experience better and I admit I have been pretty happy with that setup. However, I love using Swype on my Android [...]
RobbieOctober 30, 2010
Theres no portrait QWERTY?? are you sure, I have seen pictures of it
vlNovember 10, 2010
this is a good guide on how to make your keyboard work better, but I have a question. On my old e71 when you, well lets say, you start typing in “hello” i would type in “hel” and then it will show me the full word, and when I tap the space bar it will complete the word. On the N8, the same happens, but when I hit the space bar it doesn’t complete the word, it just stops at “hel”. It only completes it if I hit one of the two arrows on the side of the space bar. It makes no sense to me
The solution to this problem is by downloading a software called SWYPE, its amazing and you just move your fingers across the keypad
RanJanuary 29, 2011
that is great unless you text in visayan language. hard to hit the correct letter in landscape, use the prtrait keyboard for now, is only complaint i have about phone. otherwise is best ever of nokia from n95/n96/n97mini. thank you
SukiSeptember 17, 2011
I have a small different keyboard ? I don’t know how to change it to this one ? can someone help me
crystalSeptember 22, 2011
can any one help me? when i am trun my N8 to landscape while typeing a message, keyboard doesn’t appear. Is there any one to help me out and solve the problem?
very good, it’s very useful to me, thank you very much!
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ShuvoSeptember 6, 2012
Wow great post here, it really helpful THANKSSSSSSS
October 14, 2010