Windows Phone Thoughts: Arrr, Matey, Stow That Serial Keyboard - This 'ere's Cap'n Bluetooth!

Ergonomics
From a user perspective, this keyboard is identical to the Stowaway XT keyboard I reviewed a while ago. Here are some pictures of them together:


Figure 18: Comparison of the XT and Bluetooth keyboards when closed. Bluetooth version is at the top.


Figure 19: ..and here they are when opened!


Figure 20: An end-on view of the Bluetooth (top) and XT keyboards. Pretty similar thickness.

The keyboard feel between the XT and the Bluetooth Universal is exactly the same to my fingers. It’s not quite as solid a feel as the keyboard on my laptop, and it has the same balance/tipping problem when I rest my hands on either side of the keyboard ends. I won’t bother getting into the missing row of numbers thing, since we went through all of that the last time. The space bar is separated into two pieces, to facilitate the fold line on the keyboard, and that takes a little getting used to. There are two FN keys (coloured green and blue) on either side of the space bar which are used in conjunction with other keys to provide numbers, symbols, and other functions. One think I noticed with the Bluetooth keyboard is that there seems to be a lot more Pocket PC-related functions available than on the XT keyboard.

Pairing With my Laptop. W?BIC!
Now here’s something that really fits into the Why? Because I Can? category. (My wife just shakes her head and mumbles something about ‘Boys and their toys’ when I show her this stuff.) I have a Fujitsu T3010D convertible laptop for work, which I’ve Bluetooth enabled using a Belkin F8T001 vers.2 USB adapter. I just recently installed Windows XP SP2, so it should be able to recognize and use the keyboard within the built-in HID support.

In three words? It worked perfectly! I was able to pair up the keyboard to my laptop in under a minute, including configuring and establishing the ‘secure’ connection.


Figure 21: All paired up with my T3010!!

The only difficulty I’ve encountered is that, unlike the Pocket PC, my laptop loses all knowledge of the keyboard once it's disconnected. The entire device disappears from the Bluetooth Devices panel. The only way to get it back is to re-create the device and establish a new pairing. I’m not sure why this happens, but I suspect it’s something within the XP/SP2 operating system, rather than anything wrong with the keyboard.


Figure 22: The Bluetooth Devices screen on the laptop.

Theoretically, I should be able to also pair the keyboard with my Nokia 3650 phone, but I haven’t bothered, since I don’t do any text messaging, and I can’t see any other possible reason for having a keyboard on my phone. (I’m open to suggestions though -- much to my dear wife’s chagrin!)