“Android really was designed to be used with your fingers, not a stylus.”

To put a finer point on it, Android was designed to be used on capacitive touch interfaces. It has nothing to do with finger versus stylus because a finger works just as well (just differently) on a resistive display as on a capacitive one, and a stylus works just as well (although differently) on a capacitive display as on a resistive one.

All that sliding and swiping is capacitive territory. It doesn’t make a bit of difference if you’re using your bare finger or a capacitive stylus. A capacitive screen responds to contact. A resistive touchscreen responds to pressure after contact. All of those finger-tendon-straining, screen smudging, display occluding (can you tell how I really feel about it?) gestures built into Android simply won’t work well or comfortably on MOST resistive screens because of the requirement to sustain pressure. A stylus can help because it focus the pressure of your hand down onto a finer point, but you’re still asking the hardware to do something other than it’s strength. People like me prefer resistive touchscreens because we can touch the screen to align our finger and then make pressure to supply the input. This is far more accurate and useful. However, neither Google nor Android are emphasizing this advantage in their mobile OS GUIs, which is why most people think that they don’t like resistive interfaces. In context, they don’t.

I’ve only had mine for a few days. I bought it mostly for development work but I love so far. I have never really liked capacitive screens. I play finger-style guitar and my pinky fingernail makes the best stylus. The battery life is a little short, but oh well, $300 is a great price for a well made device. I think it will hurt the galaxy tab sales.

So far so good.