Typing Master Express Review
Well packed mini-suite for typing improvement
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You can buy it at RegNow for that price.
- clean interface
- improvement charts
- customized training
- adjustment of lessons' duration
- detailed manual
- bright colors
- blurry in full-screen on wide resolution
- only forward movement in the "Clouds" game
- automatic duration adjustment algorithm sometimes inaccurate
The Review
Although this program appears at first sight as a tool for improvement of already good typing skills, it is in my opinion suitable for any level of typing skill, even for beginners, since it offers numerous lessons with a wide variety of difficulty levels and shows useful tips on ergonomy, typing techniques and speed improvement in between.
Immediately upon startup was I delighted by a nice and simple interface summarizing all the available features of this program. Only later had I begun to realize the range of rather bright colors chosen for its interface might become slightly unpleasant for the eyes throughout the time. This is however compensated with the wide range of features at your hand with this tool, which was for me quite unexpected at this price. Ranging from simple typing tests aimed at right finger placement to advanced statistics building and nifty typing observer that keeps an eye on your typing routine to recommend just the right training exercises for you, this app is definitely capable of smoothing out a motivated person's learning curve while providing additional motivation in form of simple but well designed mini-games.
There were two features I immediately fell in love with. The first one was adjustment of lesson duration based on immediate progress, which is also indicated by a bar-scale in the sidebar. Another feature especially worth mentioning are charts at the end of lessons visually showing your progress and keys to focus on in further training. One minor drawback is you can't change the font the exercise text appears in, however, with the default settings, the text is quite well readable and the active segment or word is visibly distinguished from the rest. Also, additional visual depictors like arrow or underline are displayed for better focusing. The ability to export statistics into a personalized summary PDF may come in handy too, but the option to import any desired text file to be used as a basis for typing test deserves to finalize this review.
As long as there is motivation to fire it up, this program's intuitive interface and friendly presentation of personal statistics has a potential to regularly freshen up one's determination to type light and fast.