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How do I change old school dial on phone to a keyboard entry for ease of dialing contacts?
Blunderstorm
Newbie
‎03-30-2011 07:14 AM

I hate using the dial pad on phone to find a contact. Because each number represents 3 letters the contact suggestions if offers are always way off. Also I hate searching for which number corresponds to which letter. Anyone know a way around this? I just want to hit the phone icon and start typing a contacts name?

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Re: How do I change old school dial on phone to a keyboard entry for ease of dialing contacts?
Tidbits
Legend
‎03-30-2011 10:27 AM

You could always use the favorites widget, or you can always use the people app.

 

Favorites widget allows quick tapping to call someone(1 tap and it calls, or open text depending on what you chose for default).

People app opens your phonebook to quickly scroll through your contacts.

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Re: How do I change old school dial on phone to a keyboard entry for ease of dialing contacts?
budone
Legend
‎03-30-2011 12:38 PM

 

Blunderstorm wrote:

I hate using the dial pad on phone to find a contact. Because each number represents 3 letters the contact suggestions if offers are always way off. Also I hate searching for which number corresponds to which letter. Anyone know a way around this? I just want to hit the phone icon and start typing a contacts name?

How can the listing offered be 'way off' when it is looking through contacts you have saved?  For example I have Jim saved. I type 543 and the list of Jims show up. As I do not have any Kim's saved none will show up. It will not bring up abstract names unless in your contact list.

 

You could also use the voice search.

 

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Re: How do I change old school dial on phone to a keyboard entry for ease of dialing contacts?
AZSALUKI
Legend
‎03-30-2011 02:07 PM

it can be a bit off if you have many contacts. if i type 546 it brings up jimbo, lindsay, lindsey, jill holle and a few others (it will take combinations of letters from the last name as well, which throws in some unnecessary options of contacts). but when you get to a 4th letter it usually narrows it down significantly. i type 5462 and jimbo is the only one. unless there's some sort of dialer app with a qwerty keyboard, i don't believe you can do what you want. in fact, i don't even know of a way to start typing a name in the "people" app to go straight to a contact??? (which, to me seems like it would have been a good alternative, and seems like something that i would find useful.....an input box to type in at the top on the screen when you open people....instead of having to scroll).

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Re: How do I change old school dial on phone to a keyboard entry for ease of dialing contacts?
21stNow
Master - Level 1
‎03-30-2011 06:19 PM

Coming from the Nexus S, so let me know if this doesn't work on the Thunderbolt.  Go to the Google Search bar, if you still have that on your home screen.  Type in your contact's name, then select the contact from the drop down search.  Tap again to dial the number.

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Re: How do I change old school dial on phone to a keyboard entry for ease of dialing contacts?
AZSALUKI
Legend
‎03-30-2011 07:59 PM

that's only going to work if you set that widget to ONLY search your phone for people. i have mine to set to search the web as well so it lists a bunch of goole web search hits, and then lists ONE of the contacts that fits the search at the very bottom of the list. 

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Re: How do I change old school dial on phone to a keyboard entry for ease of dialing contacts?
Ann154
Community Leader
Community Leader
‎03-30-2011 08:32 PM
AZ, I noticed that too when I was testing the search function on the Aria. Kind of glad I never used the search button much.

I'm most definitely NOT a VZW employee. If a post answered your question, please mark it as the answer.

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Re: How do I change old school dial on phone to a keyboard entry for ease of dialing contacts?
AZSALUKI
Legend
‎03-30-2011 09:21 PM

it's actually a great search tool because it's extremely customizeable. however, if you include people, internet, apps, etc in the "search for" settings, then it provides too many results to use it as a contact dialer. if you really wanted to though, you could select only "people" and it would work as sort of a contact quick finder and dialer.

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Re: How do I change old school dial on phone to a keyboard entry for ease of dialing contacts?
21stNow
Master - Level 1
‎03-31-2011 12:49 AM

I have mine set to search web, apps and contacts, but my contacts come up high on the list.  Even a common name like John brings my two contacts up that are named John first, then the web results are under them.  That's with just typing "JO".

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