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PDA Keyboards Compared
The Tech-Report is currently running a feature that compares two of the leading PDA keyboards - the Targus Stowaway and the Landware GoType. I've seen a number of these used before, but haven't gotten one yet - anyone else found one that they really like?
At the time when I needed a keyboard for my Palmpilot Personal (512kb) the only choice around was the GoType. I've been using it for about 2 years now and am quite happy with it.
The keys are large enough for comfortable typing, they could use to be larger. It does not drain batteries excessively. I've cranked out some large amounts of text in relatively short times and haven't found myself cursing the size of the keys.
My only complaint is that: the driver I am currently using with Hackmaster will occasionally require me to power down and power back up for the keyboard to work (this only happens after a 'timeout' shutdown, not a manual shutdown). This problem is probably fixed with new driver versions though.
It's not a statement of preference, but I have to say the stowaway has made a big difference to my life.
I'm a journalist, and travel extensively. While it's nice to have a ThinkPad with me, they are heavy, take enormous amounts of adaptors, rechargers and cables to work and are expensive to replace. It's a big hassle for email and text editing enough to write a thousand words a day.
Since the summer I've been using a visor and the stowaway, with a Xircom modem in the top and pEdit inside. The whole thing fits into my pocket, takes AAA batteries and if I lose any of the bits costs less than a hundred pounds to replace.
I can touch type on the Stowaway with no problems, and I now carry one less bag on planes. If you travel a lot, that alone makes a huge difference. We're even looking at kitting all our reporters with them. Why pay £1500 for a laptop that's only needed for text?
If only PalmOS came with a word count function as standard.
She's a graduate student, and wanted to be able to type up notes in class. She already had a Visor, and since she walks to school, she didn't want to lug around a laptop the size we could afford (smaller being more expensive). There's also the matter that nobody else uses a computer in class- she didn't want to be conspicuous hooking a big machine.
:-)
She's been using the Stowaway / Visor combination for a whole semester now, and it's been perfect, with two exceptions. First, it wasn't any use in her Greek class (nonalphabetical character set). Second, the cool-ass folding keyboard attracted much more attention for the first few weeks than a laptop would.
Even though the Stowaway feels sort of flimsy when unfolded, it seems quite durable when packed away (she carries it in the pocket of her backpack, which gets banged around a bit). Even with heavy use, it's holding up very well- no obvious wear.
It took me a few minutes with the thing to figure out how it got so skinny and still have decent key travel. The secret is that all of the keys are actually depressed when it's folded up. Very clever engineering indeed.