If there is one complaint that has been pretty consistent around the Pocket PC Phone Edition world, its been the cry for an affordable keyboard. At announcement day, the carriers all showed a thumbpad and a folding keyboard. Both were priced high (when compared with iPaq 3rd party keyboards), and neither were available for months. A few weeks back, a batch of the thumbpads appeared and were quickly sold. Now, Moonlight Technologies has released the first inexpensive ($39.99 at their website) keyboard designed to work with the HTC made Pocket PC Phone Edition pdaPhones (AT&T Siemens, T-Mobile, and O2 XDA). I just received one and wanted to get information out as quickly as I could. I will update this review over time as I've had a chance to put the device through it's paces on a more regular basis.


Packaging and Delivery
I first tried to order the keyboard from the Moonlight Technologies website and found that the site was having problems. A quick email to the company got me alternate instructions to use Paypal. The reply explained that a site upgrade was going on and that if I wanted fast service, that I needed to use the alternate method. Being a long time Paypal user, I went with that approach. I received a prompt reply and then received my keyboard 3 days later.

The box was shipped in a bubble wrap envelope and arrived safe and sound.


I quickly opened the envelope and found an attractive box. The box looked like something that would be at home on a computer retailers end shelf. They make these keyboards for a variety of PDAs, and the box is generic with a Palm based unit in the picture. A sticker was on the front that said "for XDA".



On the back of the box are a few key facts about the keyboard...

• Plug and play, instant on
  
• No battery or cable required
  
• Key spacing: 11 x 8 mm
  
• Key travel: 1.5 mm
  
• Closed size: 4.8" x 3.1" x 0.6" (121 x 81 x 16 mm)
  
• Open size: 9.5" x 3.1" x 0.3" (242 x 81 x 8 mm)
  
• Weight: 4.6 ounces (130 g)
  
• Key life: 1 million

Inside the Box
The box comes with the keyboard, a small user's guide, and a driver diskette. The body is brown, and the edges are black.


The keyboard is folded up and is slightly wider than the Phone Edition. (no comments about my cracked display... the battle goes on with CompUSA and their supposed TAP program ) We'll come back to the keyboard in a moment.


This is the first diskette I've received with a product in a long time. I had to hunt for my diskette drive to put in my laptop so that I could load the driver. It is simply labeled "Portable Keyboard Driver for XDA, Copyright 2001". A version of the driver would have been nice to have here so that if there were an update in the future, you could verify it on their website before loading an old one.



The manual is about the size of the diskette, and 13 pages. The table of contents includes:

• The portable keyboard
  
• Installing the portable keyboard software
  
• Customizing your portable keyboard features
  
• Setting up the portable keyboard
  
• Closing the portable keyboard
  
• Key functions

Opening the Keyboard
The following sequence of pictures will show you how the keyboard opens. Closing works the same in reverse. Start with the closed keyboard laying on a flat surface. You don't want to use this in your lap, as the support and adapter aren't strong enough to support the XDA / Phone Edition properly.


First, swing open the lever that holds the keyboard closed when carrying it. I believe this lever also provides a bit of stability when the keyboard is open.


Next, fold the keyboard body open...


... until it is flat on the table top.


Then, the XDA / Phone Edition stand is lifted up and it's support opened into place.


Finally, the XDA / Phone Edition is placed onto the connector.


The Keys
The keyboard has all the keys you'd expect to find. I've only used it briefly, and I didn't find it very easy to type on. The keys are rubberized tactile feel. That is good, and bad. Good because you can feel your way around. Bad because the keys take some pressure to push in. There are a number of special functions on the keys, not all of which seemed to work in my short test. The special keys are accessed using the Fn key.


In the upper right corner, is a 4 key cluster that offers a total of eight functions. Natively, the keys provide one-button access to the Inbox, Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks (these weren't working correctly for me, however I'm using PocketInformant and have it tied to the normal buttons... so this could explain the problems). With the Fn key, they provide access to Excel, Word, Notes, and the Calculator (again, I had problems here).


On the left portion of the keyboard is a numlock function.


On the lower right portion of the keyboard are navigation functions.


In my usage, the biggest problem I ran into is that the lip around the lower edge of the keyboard is uncomfortable on your thumbs... if trying to do typewriter style touch typing. I may take a grinder to that if I don't get used to it!

The Connector
The connector seems to be well made and is easy to slide the XDA / Phone Edition onto. It seems to be designed in a way that should minimize it getting damaged with use.


The Software Installation
As strange as it is to receive a diskette with a product these days, it's even stranger that the only file on the diskette is setup.exe. No familiar ReadMe file, no documentation, nothing. The enclosed manual is sufficient, it's just odd that there's nothing else on there. A soft copy of the manual would have been a nice touch. When I ran setup, it didn't seem to behave the way I expected. The dialog asking if you wanted to install it to the default location did not appear. It installed to the PC and XDA / Phone Edition, and I initially thought that it didn't work. When I tried it again, I got a message on the XDA / Phone Edition asking if I wanted to reinstall it. In any event, it did install pretty quickly.

The Software
I will post some screen shots later. For now, I'll overview what the software does. Upon installation, a soft boot of the XDA / Phone Edition was required to get the keyboard working. At startup, the keyboard configuration software started up automatically. It is also in the Start Menu for later use.

On the main setup tab, you can enable/disable the keyboard, adjust repeat rate and delay, and test the keyboard. Enabling the keyboard made it immediately available for use. A second hotkey tab provides for assigning ten programs/functions to the ten hotkeys. To access a hotkey, you would press Fn and a number (1-10). The last tab is About. This tab reveals that the Keyboard program is produced by Systech Group ( http://www.citipack.com.tw ), and it is Version 3.1.

Conclusion
I have only used the keyboard for a very short time, and so I will be updating this conclusion over the next few weeks. I wanted the rest of the review available for anyone contemplating a purchase.


Pros

• Price
  
• Size
  
• Ease of use

Cons

• Lower Edge - Rubs thumbs
  
• Key feel

For the price, this is hard to beat. I will keep playing with it and let you know in a few weeks if it is pitched aside, or becomes essential to my daily use. You can order one from Moonlight Technologies. They carry a few other reasonably priced accessories for the XDA / Phone Edition.