17. The system of claim 16 , wherein the relevance bias values are based on the count of the number of text characters received from the user.
16. A system for processing a search request received from a user operating a hand-held text input device, the search request directed at identifying a desired item from a set of items, each of the items having one or more associated terms, the system comprising: a first memory for storing at least a first portion of the set of items, the items having assigned popularity values to indicate a relative measure of a likelihood that the item is desired by the user, and each item being associated with a set of terms to describe the item, each term being assigned a relevance value based on a relevance of an informational content of the term in identifying the item, the terms associated with the items being organized into searchable subspace categories, each subspace category having a relevance bias value; a device input for receiving text entered by the user on a hand-held text input device, the text having two or more text characters of one or more prefixes for terms the user is using to identify a desired item, the two or more text characters including a first text portion and a second text portion, the second text portion being received subsequent to the first text portion; a processor for performing a first incremental find in response to receiving the first text portion and for ordering one or more items found in the first incremental find based on a first ranking order, the first incremental find comparing the one or more user-entered prefixes with the terms associated with the items and retrieving the relevance values for the one or more user-entered prefixes matching terms associated with the items, the first ranking order of the one or more items found in the first incremental find being based on the assigned popularity values of the items and being based on the retrieved relevance values for the one or more user-entered prefixes matching terms associated with the items, so that relatively more popular and more relevant items appear earlier in the order for user selection or activation, the processor also for performing a second incremental find in response to receiving the second text portion and for ordering one or more items found in the second incremental find based on a second ranking order, the second incremental find comparing the one or more user-entered prefixes with the terms associated with the items and retrieving the relevance values for the one or more user-entered prefixes matching terms associated with the items, the second ranking order of the one or more items found in the second incremental find being based on the assigned popularity values of the items and being based on adjusted relevance values for the one or more user-entered prefixes matching terms associated with the items, the relevance values of the terms associated with the items being adjusted in response to the count of the number of text characters received from the user, the order of at least a portion of the one or more items being changed based on the adjusted relevance values of the terms, and at least one of the first ranking order and the second ranking order being further based on the relevance bias values of the subspace categories; and a device output for presenting at least one of the first and the second ordered one or more items to the user.