.FLYINGHEAD SIX MONTHS LATER
.TITLE Hands-on (literally) with the Palm wireless keyboard
.AUTHOR Heather Wardell
.OTHER
.SUMMARY Palm makes a nice, portable wireless keyboard that works through your handheld’s IR port. How well does it work? You’ll have to read Heather Wardell’s hands-on review to get a final read.
When I needed a new Palm, I thought about getting one with the thumb-board keyboard built-in, like those you see on the Treo 650. When I tried it out, though, I found that my hands just weren’t fitting the thumb-board properly, so I went with a "traditional" Palm that uses Graffiti as the data entry mechanism.
Still, there are times when it would be really nice to have a real keyboard. As a writer, it would definitely be nice to not have to haul my laptop around when I need a change of scenery. Tasks such as entering recipes or writing long memos would also be made much easier with a keyboard.
Palm’s wireless keyboard seemed as though it might fit the bill, so I put it through its paces. Note: there is a newer version of this keyboard, with one more row of keys; I will point out places where the newer keyboard would be more effective. However, like many Computing Unplugged reviews where we like to look at products after we’ve given them some considerable use, this keyboard has actually been used in my testing.
.H1 Initial thoughts
There’s a keyboard in there?
The Palm wireless keyboard folds up into a neat (and intriguingly folded) package only a bit larger than my Zire. Figure A shows the folded keyboard next to my Zire’s case.
.FIGPAIR A The keyboard and my Zire’s case are nearly the same size.
I unfolded the keyboard carefully and started pushing keys. While it looks as though it’d be difficult to unfold, it actually works very well. You can’t unfold it in the wrong way and it’s quite stable and sturdy. It does require a hard surface to work on, though; it isn’t stable enough to work on your lap.
.BREAK_EMAIL So what did Heather think about this? Tap here to read the rest.
The Palm and the keyboard communicate through infrared. The keyboard has a small wand that needs to be aimed approximately at your Palm’s infrared port. Figure B shows my old Zire 71 in position; there is a small silver bar that is supposed to hold the handheld in place, but it doesn’t seem to do very much. Regardless, the Palm is very stable in the keyboard without it.
.FIGPAIR B The setup feels very secure.
.H1 Installation
The keyboard comes with a CD that has its drivers on it; there are often updates to these drivers, and so I recommend checking Palm’s web site at http://www.palm.com/us/support to see if there are newer drivers than those on the CD. Either way, you install a single file to your Palm and you’re in business.
After the install, there will be a new program on your Palm, appropriately called Keyboard. Here you can turn on and off the keyboard, set the repeat speed, and assign applications to the command keys. This is very handy; rather than having to press the Address hard button on your Palm, for example, you could press Cmd and 1 to bring up the Address program.
.H1 The keyboard itself
The keyboard that I reviewed has four rows of keys. The top three rows contain the letters and numbers, and most of the control keys (Enter, Shift, and so on). The bottom row has two small space bars (one on each side of the fold in the keyboard), the delete key, two function keys, several of the arrow keys, and the Alt, Ctrl and Cmd keys.
Many of the keys have words printed on them, such as Edit or New, or symbols such as the percent sign. Some of these are in blue and some are in green. One of the function keys is blue and the other is green. This is not a coincidence. To page down, for example, you hold down the green Fn key and press the key with PgDn on it. While this does take some getting used to, it is a well-planned method of making the most of the keyboard’s small size, and it does quickly become routine.
.H1 How it works
For general typing, I find the keyboard to be very solid. The depth of the keys is certainly much shallower than a regular keyboard but only a small amount less than my laptop. The keys snap back quickly and have a nice feel to them. The keyboard is very responsive, and the navigation keys work well.
Where this keyboard doesn’t shine is in numbers. I mentioned above that the newer version of this keyboard has one more row of keys; the new one has the numbers and symbols on their own row (like most keyboards) but the older one combines these with the top row of letters. While I have begun to get used to this, it certainly does slow me down when I need to type a number. Almost invariably, I get the letter instead and then need to go back and erase it. I am not surprised that Palm decided to change this design in the new version; it really is inconvenient.
.H1 Battery life
Palm says that the two AAA batteries will last up to four months depending on how often you use the keyboard. I used mine quite a bit over a two week period and it was still going strong. Unfortunately, I didn’t close it back up after I took the pictures for this article, and the batteries were dead when I came back to it a few days later.
I think that the keyboard was likely sending out infrared signals throughout the time that it was open, and that this probably drained the batteries in short order. Folding the keyboard back up and putting it away would have prevented this.
.H1 Final thoughts
As it stands right now, the keyboard earns a rating of 3. It does the job, particularly if you don’t need to type very many numbers, in a reasonable fashion. The new version, with a separate row of number keys, would rate at least a 4. Both units appear to be the same size, and are very portable and well-designed.
.RATING 3
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on the Palm wireless keyboard, visit http://www.palm.com/us/products/accessories/peripherals.
For driver updates, visit http://www.palm.com/us/support
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
