« Bombardier Embrio -- Unicycle on Steroids | Main | New from Q: The Aquada »

November 13, 2003

Review: Targus Wireless (Infrared) Keyboard

The following is Andrew Russel's excellent and thorough review of the Targus Universal Wireless Keyboard (shown below). He posted it on the Tapwave_Users Yahoo! Group mailing list and gave me permission to reproduce it here.

OK, I shouldn't have bought this keyboard without reading a review first, so here is a review for the rest of you.

This is the keyboard that Tapwave offers on their website (I bought it from CompUSA.) The only other portable keyboards that I have used have been of the Stowaway tri-fold type, for the Palm Vx, m500, and n760c. Compared to those keyboards, this one, to be honest, sucks. Here are the issues that I encountered:

1) Small, *very* hard-to-press spacebar. In order to press the spacebar, which must be done between every word, you have to reach your thumb over a plastic divider that is nearly the same height as the key. I find this very, very annoying.

2) No arrow keys! It is incredebly difficult to edit text if there are no arrow keys. There is an arrow-button, a cheap-feeling plastic button with directional arrows on it, which is supposed to be used for an on-screen cursor. I couldn't make it work.

3) Non-functional control key. In the version of Wordsmith included with the Zodiac, the control key is non-functional. This means that virtually no keyboard shortcuts work. This is probably a minor driver issue that could be fixed either by Wordsmith or by Targus.

4) Size. It's big - About 1/2 an inch shorter on one side than a CD case, and about as thick as 2.5 CD cases. This is much bigger than the Stowaway, even though the Stowaway has a lot more keys and much better key spacing. Also, it just plain looks ugly compared to the Stowaway. It has a huge black piece of plastic that sits on the table behind it, and another unfinished-looking piece of plastic behind the Zodiac, and and IR-arm sticking up above it - you use this, and you are going to have to accept looking like a dork :).

5) Cheap plastic feel. All of the buttons other than the standard keyboard keys have a cheap plastic feel to them - difficult to press, etc. Also, there are several small parts that do not look very durable, including the latch to open the keyboard, the keyboard lock to hold it open in your lap, and the whole lens arm assembly. I don't think that these will last nearly as long/as well as the Stowaways do (Despite hundreds of hours of class notes, my n760c Stowaway looked like new after 2 years of abuse, except for the wear on the top of the buttons.) Also, the case has plastic nubs on the outside, so it wouldn't slide easily even if you have pockets big enough to hold it (The Zodiac itself has similar problems...) They don't include a cloth case with it like Stowaway does, either.

6) The clips don't hold the Zodiac securely in landscape mode. It uses small, spring-loaded wire clips to hold the handheld in place. There are three of them: bottom, left, and right. The bottom and right ones are stationary, and the left one adjusts to the size of the handheld. They do a good job in portrait mode, but there is no provision for landscape. The left clip will not reach that far. I imagine it could be easily modified, adding another clip in future versions. It does have little rubber pads that the Zodiac can sit on outside of the clip system, and this works well, until you need to use the stylus.

7) Sometimes, rarely, the IR function will not work correctly, and need realigned. This is weird because it happens while typing. It results in missed characters, and sometimes repeated characters - you type 'r' and you get "rrrrpt," for example.

8) No stylus holder. The Stowaways all have a slot, usually left and right, to hold the stylus in while you are typing. This makes it much easier if you need to go back and forth a lot. The Targus has lots of holes that *could* have been used for this, but none of them seem to work.

9) I don't really care about this, but it is funny and reflects the production/QA values of Targus. There is a misspelling on one of the keys - "Graffiti" is mispelled as "Graffetti"

10) Key spacing. The guys, most notably the n and h keys, are smaller than they should be, and further apart (this is to account for the division in the middle.) Also, the bottom and top rows, including the space bar and backspace key, are tiny. The backspace key is one of the smallest keys on the keybaord! The number row, even though it is there, is very small, and offset funny from the rest of the keyboard - meaning no number typing unless you totally retrain your fingers. They might as well not even have it - at least they would have had space for a real backspace key!

I *do* consider the Stowaway to be a valid comparison, even though they are not available for the Zodiac yet - they are in a similar price range, and have the same function. Believe me, if the Targus keyboard cost only $30, I wouldn't be complaining.

The Targus does have its good points too - it's *fast*, much faster than the Stowaway was on any of my other handhelds (I hear they are slow even on modern, fast handhelds.) You don't need to worry about the iffy hotsync port on the Zodiac, because it is IR. Also, it uses small, light watch batteries, so it is not too heavy (compared, I guess, to other IR keyboards.) It does use the good, plastic X key springs rather than rubber domes, for the important keys at least. Finally, it *is* 20% cheaper, although I would argue that you lose more than 20% useability.

Posted by Craig in Mobile & PDAs

Comments

Posted by: Ken at November 14, 2003 9:45 AM

Posted by: Evan at March 22, 2004 7:41 PM

Posted by: Evan at March 22, 2004 7:41 PM

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:
(will not be shown publicly)

URL:
(will be shown publicly)
Remember Me? YesNo

Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)