Making Android game, key input registered weirdly on X10 Mini Pro

Question

Hey, I've just started to learn Android development and ran into a problem.

Controls in the game I'm making work on virtual device, but not on phone:

• I have an Xperia X10 Mini Pro
• I'm making a basic Pong game to learn droid software development
• The game works just fine on my Android virtual device, you can move the paddles up and down smoothly
• On my phone I've figured that the onKeyDown event doesn't run until I release the button or after I've held down the button for a second or two, but then it only registers it as a brief press of the button, not like if I was holding it down
• I believe that it's a feature of my phone to quickly access special characters, because some keys register different key codes when pressed quickly and when held down
• The problems this results in is that I can not move the paddles, but I can do single press things, like pause the game

I can also add:

• Game is heavily built around sample app LunarLander from the SDK
• Lunar lander works fine in virtual device but has same issues as my pong when put in my phone

How could I force my phone to register onKeyDown events like it should? (Or at least like the virtual device does?)

Code from my view class that extends surfaceView:

@Override
public boolean onKeyDown(int keyCode, KeyEvent msg) {
    return thread.doKeyDown(keyCode, msg);
}

@Override
public boolean onKeyUp(int keyCode, KeyEvent msg) {
    return thread.doKeyUp(keyCode, msg);
}

Code from within the thread:

boolean doKeyDown(int keyCode, KeyEvent msg) {
    synchronized (mSurfaceHolder) {
        mP1Score = keyCode;//For debugging
        boolean okStart = false;
        if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_SPACE) okStart = true;
        if (mMode == STATE_PAUSE && okStart) {
            setState(STATE_RUNNING);
            return true;
        } else if (mMode == STATE_READY && okStart) {
            setState(STATE_RUNNING);
            return true;
        } else if (mMode == STATE_GOAL && okStart) {
            return true;
        }else if (mMode == STATE_END_GAME && okStart) {
            doStart();
            return true;
        } else if (mMode == STATE_RUNNING) {
            if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_Q) {
                mP1dY = -PLAYER_SPEED;//Player 1 up
                return true;
            } else if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_A) {
                mP1dY = PLAYER_SPEED;//Player 1 down
                return true;
            } else if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_O) {
                mP2dY = -PLAYER_SPEED;//Player 2 up
                return true;
            } else if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_L) {
                mP2dY = PLAYER_SPEED;//Player 2 down;
                return true;
            } else if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_SPACE) {
                pause();//Space is pressed in game
                return true;
            }
        }
        return false;
    }
}

boolean doKeyUp(int keyCode, KeyEvent msg) {
    boolean handled = false;
    mP2Score = keyCode;//For debugging
    synchronized (mSurfaceHolder) {
        if (mMode == STATE_RUNNING) {
            if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_Q
                    || keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_A) {
                mP1dY = 0;
                handled = true;
            } else if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_O
                    || keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_L) {
                mP2dY = 0;
                handled = true;
            }
        }
    }
    return handled;
}

Complete source available here

Answer 1

Here's a sort-of-solution:

The problem is SE's default input method on the X10 Mini Pro. By installing a different input method on the phone (HTC_IME in my case) I can get controls to work like they do on the virtual device.

Now I only need to figure out how to make it work with the default input method and I'll have a complete solution.