The Gadgets Page

The i.Tech Virtual Bluetooth Keyboard is an interesting idea: A small device the size of a pack of gum projects a laser image of a standard keyboard onto any flat surface. You type by touching the surface at the image of the key you want. Does it work? Yes. Is it practical? That depends a lot on your needs. Our review puts it to the test.

Quality

The device is small, sleek, and quite well made. It works exactly as it says it is going to, and we had no issues connecting it to a Mac laptop or a Treo—it supports the standard Bluetooth Keyboard profile so in many cases you don’t need to load the driver software. Because it’s totally solid state, it will only fail when it’s internal battery no longer takes a charge.

Usability

Is this device better than a real keyboard? Of course not. But the real question is whether it’s better than the keyboard on your PDA or cell phone, and the answer to that question is a qualified yes—the qualification being “unless you have a solid thumb board such as the one on the PalmOne Treo 650.” If you do, you’ll be able to enter text faster on the thumb board.

There are three primary problems with the technology:

1. You have to keep your fingers above the virtual keyboard, a position that touch typists will not appreciate.
2. You have to stare at the keyboard image as you type—which prevents you from seeing what is happening on screen.
3. Misinterpretations are common.

If you are not a touch typist (or don’t mind reverting), then 1 and 2 aren’t that big of a deal. Problem 3 is a real problem. Even if you type as carefully as possible, you’re still going to have a 1 in 25 character error rate, which is far too much for reliable data entry. You can adjust the sensitivity of the keyboard, but it doesn’t seem to make any real difference to the error rate. If you’re working with a fully fledged word processor such as Microsoft Word or OpenOffice Writer, the autocorrect and spell checking features can reasonably compensate for most of the errors. But this keyboard was designed for PDAs and cellphones, which do neither. Given an hour or so of practice, you may find that you can get your error rate down to a level you find acceptable, but mileage will definitely vary from individual to individual.

As a touch typist whose comfortable typing speed is 80wpm, I was able to get to about 25 words per minute on the keyboard with a tolerable error rate. That’s almost exactly what I get with the Treo’s thumbboard, which is the only PDA I care about at the moment, so for me, this keyboard is not compelling.

Summary and Conclusions

For most mobile devices, the projected keyboard will allow you to enter text two to three times faster than handwriting recognition or “texting” with a 10-key phone pad. And the small size will allow you to keep it in your pocket or purse if you want to keep a keyboard with you—a problem with the vastly superior but much larger ThinkOutside Bluetooth Keyboard.

The price point is an issue: At $200, the device just isn’t a value for most users—it’s more expensive than the vastly superior ThinkOutside Bluetooth Keyboard, its most direct competition. If it gets down to $75, I’d say it’s a value. Even better would be building the technology into a PDA or phone—setting your PDA down and enabling a virtual keyboard would be a real advantage over no keyboard at all.

If you can tolerate a slightly larger keyboard and touch-typing is important to you, the ThinkOutside Bluetooth Keyboard is the way you should go. If you’re a hunt-and-peck typist anyway, and small size is important to you, and $200 is in your budget for a mobile keyboard, and you really like lasers… then this is your device.