Palm Wireless Keyboard29 September 2003 Let's face it, IR keyboards don't have a stellar reputation. Most are difficult to set up, and keeping the line of sight going between the keyboard and the PDA can be problematic. Many IR keyboards force you to use the PDA at a weird angle, like flat on the table in front of you. Response time is often sluggish, and impatient typists can be halfway through backspacing through a "mistyped" word before realizing that it was correct, but slow in appearing. Personally, I've tended to stay clear of IR keyboards for just these reasons, even though at the rate with which I churn through PDAs, it would certainly have been cheaper to get one than buy a new keyboard for every new PDA I get (since there are no real standards in terms of sync connectors; Palm's Universal Connector and HP's iPaq connector are popular, but by no means truly "universal"). IR-based keyboards just didn't seem ready for prime time. Until now. Palm's new Wireless Keyboard is what an IR keyboard should be. It's easy to set up. It's as fast as a hard-docked keyboard. It comes with an integral stand that not only keeps the PDA at a comfortable viewing angle, but also keeps the IR port properly aligned. And at 5.6 ounces, it's no hardship to carry around. The Palm Wireless Keyboard (which, because I'm lazy, will be referred to as PWK from here on out) is descended from the ThinkOutside Stowaway line, and I'd be very surprised to not to see a Fellowes-branded version of it for Pocket PCs at some point in the near future (and if such a keyboard came with drivers that let me use my PWK with my Pocket PCs, so much the better). The key layout, key size and key travel are all identical to the Palm Ultra-thin Keyboard (a Pocket PC Fellowes version of which is already available). The full-size notebook-style keys and 3mm key travel makes for a comfortable typing experience. I've found only minor adjustments necessary to my typing style, mostly due to the fact that like the Ultra-thin and quite unlike my laptop and the original Stowaway I'm used to, the PWK is a four-row keyboard. On the whole, the PWK is very comfortable, especially given its size. When folded, the PWK is somewhere between the original Stowaway and Ultra-thin in size, though closer to the Ultra-thin in both size and weight than the Stowaway. The weight is kept down bit by the PWK's all-plastic construction, rather than using the aluminum shell of the other keyboards. Opening the PWK is a four-step procedure. 1. Flip up the latch on the front of the keyboard a fold it back as far as it will go. This becomes a stand to support the PDA tray. 2. Lift the PDA support tray into position, about 120 degrees away from the plane of the keyboard. A spring-loaded metal bar will push forward to hold the PDA to the plastic tray. 3. Grabbing the left edge, flip the right half of the keyboard over and flat. It almost does this automatically, since the keys are compressed while the keyboard is closed. 4. Rotate the IR sensor arm into the appropriate position for whatever PDA and PDA orientation you're using. While this process takes longer than setting up a Stowaway or Ultra-thin, it's much faster and easier than any other IR keyboard I've played with. More to the point, it worked flawlessly the first time I tried it, something I can't say for any of the other IR keyboards I've tried. The PDA tray is wide enough to hold an extended Tungsten T sideways, suggesting that this keyboard was designed with the landscape-oriented Tungsten T3 in mind. (Interestingly, we got the PWK at my CompUSA before the T3, Tungsten E and Zire 21 were officially announced, yet all of these models are listed on the package as being compatible and the keyboard is pictured with a Tungsten E.) Brighthand recently reported that the ability to use a Palm in either portrait or landscape orientation will be standard in PalmOS 6, so this is a keyboard with the future firmly in mind. The keyboard's IR sensor is mounted on a plastic arm that can can rotate from horizontal left to straight vertical, with many hard stops in between. Another nice feature of the PWK is that it doesn't need a universal connector. While this primarily means it will work with UC-less Palms like the Zire, Zire 21 and Tungsten E, as well as other PalmOS devices from Sony and Samsung (as long as the device runs at least PalmOS 4, it should work fine; I tested it with a Sony SJ-33 running PalmOS 4.1), but it doesn't get it the way if you're using another peripheral that uses the UC. I've mentioned before that I have the Palm Power To Go battery sled for my Zire 71. While this does have a pass-through sync connector, it never worked with the original Stowaway. If I tried to type with the battery sled on, my Palm would try to Hotsync. With the PWK, I can type for hours on end without stop, running my Palm off the sled's power. I get nearly 20 hours of power out of a fully-charged Palm+sled, so it's safe to say I'll run out of juice before my mobile word processor does. Speaking of power, the PWK is battery-powered, like all IR keyboards. While hard-dock keyboards can run off of the PDA's power, an IR keyboard has to provide its own. How much does it use? Well, I don't know. There's really no way to tell. Neither the driver nor the keyboard itself shows any indicator of the remaining battery life of the two AAA batteries used to power the keyboard. Palm states that with occasional use of the keyboard, a pair of AAAs should last about six months, three months with heavy use. This sounds about right. After all, the batteries are only powering is a small, short range IR sensor. How long to the batteries last in remote controls? I'll probably start keeping a pair of AAAs handy, but I don't know if I'll carry them everywhere, like I did when I used them to power my Visor. I certainly don't need to keep two sets of rechargeables on rotation. Any alkaline AAA batteries will do. And really, it's not like AAA batteries are hard to find. I mentioned the driver above. The new driver software for the PWK is really cool. Not only does it control the PWK, it also allows you to continue using hard-dock keyboards like the Stowaway or Ultra-thin. Same driver (version 2.0) for all Palm keyboards. If I want to keep using the classic Stowaway for writing at home (it does have some advantages over the PWK, which I'll get to presently), I can use the same driver, no switching or disabling. Cool. The new driver also let's you set the IR to automatically power on when you turn on the Palm, and you can set a configurable time to stop looking for the keyboard signal (five minutes seems about right). Other driver features like other keyboard layouts and keyboard macros are still there. So why would you use any other keyboard for the Palm? Well, funny you should ask. The PWK does have a few downsides. In some instances, particularly when text is wrapping to the next line, the PWK seems to miss a character or two. I don't know for a fact that this is the keyboard's fault and not typos of my own (see below), but I've seen it four or five times while writing this column. I never had this problem on the Stowaway. Maybe it will go away when I get more used to the keyboard. I don't know. The other reason I'm tempted to use the classic Stowaway when typing at home is that it's a full five-row keyboard. I wasn't swayed by the Palm Ultra-thin keyboard for two reasons. One was the goofy rocking motion it makes because the edges of the keyboard sit about four millimeters above the desk, allowing ham-handed typists like me to just about flip the PDA into the next room when hitting the "enter" key (imagine typing on a tiny see-saw). The other reason, though, was the key layout. In order to keep size down, the Ultra-thin (and the PWK after it) eliminates the number row and adds a second function key (green as well as the traditional blue) and has the top row of letter keys pull triple duty, producing letters, numbers and punctuation depending on which, if any, function key is depressed. To a touch typist not using numbers or any of the number key punctuation (!@#$%^&*{}), this shouldn't make any difference, but somehow it does. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but it feels weird having my fingers so close to the PDA I can almost reach out and touch the screen with my index finger without my other fingers leaving the home row (actually, I could do this rather easily if it weren't for the extra height my Zire has due to the battery sled). At least the right hand shift key is in the right place, under and just inside of the Enter key where it belongs. Some keyboards put the right shift on the edge of the keyboard, and I invariably hit the up arrow key instead, producing typographic hilarity as I start typing inside a word on the previous line. I'm sure I'll get used to the smaller layout. I'm sure I'll get used to the fact the the slightly raised hinge is exactly on the point in front of the split space bar where my space-tapping right thumb naturally lies (I'm learning to pull that thumb in a few degrees to hit the space bar outside the hinge). It's worth a few minor transitional annoyances to have a highly portable keyboard that works this well, and will continue to work with whatever PDA I move on to in the future. Jeff Kirvin
Jeff Kirvin is available for consulting on mobile technology. Email me today! |