Fastest thumbs in Wellington

BY ESTHER LAUAKI - KAPI-MANA NEWS

Out of 700 pairs of fidgety digits, Beverly Ngo's thumbs emerged as the fastest in town.

The 16-year-old let her nimble fingers do the talking to win the Wellington regional heats for the LG National Texting Competition held in Porirua on November 7.

Competitors raced to text a randomly generated, 80character message, with a mix of words, numbers and full punctation, with total accuracy and without using predictive text.

Beverly's cheerful about her win but has mixed feelings about being labelled 'texting queen'.

"I'm not sure if I should be proud because it's like, a competition for texting. I still have [school] exams to prepare for so the pressure's on."

The year 11 pupil was shopping with her mum when they saw a crowd around the competition kiosk.
"My mum said, 'go make use of all the texting you do'. My hands were shaking I was so nervous but I made it on the scoreboard on my first attempt."

By her fourth attempt, Beverly sat at the top of the tables with a time of 23.54 seconds  nearly four characters a second.

Beverly's technique comes from sending 2000 texts a month using full punctuation.

"My friends complain because I don't use text language. I usually use predictive texting because I find that quicker."

She chose a LG GW525 phone for her prize but will prefer her Nokia N81 as her weapon of choice when it comes to competing for the national title at Girls' Day Out in Auckland on November 22.

Finalists from Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland will compete for a prize of $10,000 and a trip to New York to represent New Zealand at the LG Mobile World Cup.