Version 2.0 of the innovative Swype text entry system has just landed on the Nokia Beta Labs, so we thought we'd give it a bash on our Nokia N8 to see if it really is faster than conventional methods of typing on screen. 

Swype 2.0 for Symbian lands and Nokia Beta Labs

Swype has been available for Nokia users for some time now, and has been steadily building in popularity among the Symbian community just as with other mobile platforms too.

Following on the back of the release of Symbian Anna, version 2.0 adds support for the new portrait-style QWERTY keyboard, as well as predictive text and various other improvements.

I have to confess that I've never used Swype before, so wasn't able to compare these improvements to what came before, but other users' feedback suggests the interface has improved significantly – much of it due to that portrait keyboard support.

If you too are approaching Swype for the first time, you might be confused at first, as after downloading Swype 2.0 from Nokia Beta Labs, you won't spot an app to launch in your Applications menu – only a Skype Settings tool.

That's because Swype is automatically integrated into your text entry utility, so it'll automatically be available to you when you try to type a message or email on screen.

Given that I'd never used Swype before I was impressed at just how quickly it became second nature. A large part of that is undoubtedly due to the predictive text feature, which swallows up inaccuracies to auto-fill words even if your spelling is a bit off. For cases that aren't quite as clear a windows of choices will pop up just as with the standard text entry feature.

Predictive text is far from perfect, but it does help and overall your typing is faster with it than without, which is the whole point.

And what about Swype overall? Is it really a faster way of typing? Well, based on this test we'd say yes. Generally, though, it'll be down as much to your hardware as anything else. We'd still opt for physical QWERTY typing on the likes of the Nokia E6 and Nokia E7 above using Swype on screen, though to be fair Swype's makers have never suggested otherwise.

For bigger screened Nokia smartphones, such as the aforementioned Nokia E7 or the Nokia X7 – which both feature 4-inch screens – the addition of portrait keyboard support is a crucial step as in landscape mode your fingers are having to cover an awful lot of distance on their big touchscreens.

But for the Nokia N8 both options work well, and we'll be happy to stick to Swype for our on-screen typing needs now that we've given it a try.

DOWNLOAD: Swype 2.0 (from Nokia Beta Labs)