There are rows and rows of accessory manufacturers at every computing expo and much of it is the same stuff over and over again. This Bluetooth keyboard case for the Galaxy Tab stood out though.

The keyboard was a rubber membrane design and in my short test I recon it was faster than thumb typing but you do need to concentrate hard. Still, it’s a nice little compact solution if you’re looking to assemble a smart-book-like device.

Rosen Groups, Shenzen, China are the people you need to contact if you fancy importing a box of these at $27.50 a piece. If you do, put me down for one please!

You’ll also find a few other images in the gallery and check out their website for more info and stay tuned because we might be popping back to check out their Galaxy Tab stands and chargers too

I didn’t expect this to happen but I’ve reached the point where an on-screen keyboards is better than hardware keyboards on my mobile devices. The soft keyboard on the Galaxy Tab is now my fastest mobile text-input device.

Can you remember the on-screen keyboard delivered that was delivered with XP? Oh….my…God!

It was meant for accessibility and emergency use and it was basic, to say the least. The XP Tablet Edition keyboard wasn’t much better so it’s no wonder many of us went for hardware keyboards on our mobile devices. I went for quite a few of them.

The appeal of a weightless on-screen keyboard was always there but in practice, the execution was terrible. Either the devices were too heavy or the keyboards just weren’t responsive enough. Resistive touchscreens, screen sizes,  lack of haptics and dumb software didn’t help. Sure, the hardware keyboards were often poor too, Using long-throw keys for thumb-typing isn’t optimal but there were some good ones out there.

With the introduction of capacitive screens and intelligent on-screen keyboards, things started to change. The iPhone led and my own experience hit a peak with the HTC Desire. Still, portrait mode isn’t easy on these single-hand devices and landscape mode was blocking most of the screen so I still longed for something that slides-out but when I got the Galaxy Tab, the crossover point was reached. I am now faster on the Tab than on any other hard or soft mobile keyboard. With concentration, I can reach 80% of the speed I have on a full size keyboard and without, an easy 70% and I still have over 50% of my screen free when I’m using it.

How am I using it?

See this article with video demo. I’m using the device in portrait mode and thumbing on the Samsung keyboard with about 30% haptic feedback strength. Since that video was made, I’m even faster.

The low weight means that device doesn’t get top heavy. The width means the thumbs can cross-over across the keyboard.

The capacitive screen and haptics work quickly and give the feeling of real physics although the OSK can get held back occasionally meaning you have to type ahead and hope it buffers. It usually does but that problem definitely needs sorting out.

The intelligence in the Samsung Keyboard is great. I have to assume they are using variable hit-patches. (e.g. the hit area of the U increases if you type a Q and so on) and XT9 predictive text is more value than hindrance once you get used to it. I don’t use word completion but you’ll see the settings I do use below…

That combination of virtual physics, size/weight and intelligence has me using the Tab for far more than I thought possible. I’ve written 5 reasonable sized blog posts and a ton of emails, Tweets, IM’s, comments and annotations. I’ll be taking it to CES and I bet I use it a lot. Thank goodness the battery life is good!

Landscape mode is a problem for the on-screen keyboard but I rarely use the device in that mode. Video playback usually forces it along with the occasional rotate needed for photos.

Could it be improved? Yes. I mentioned the occasional pause above and I think there’s scope for a wider screen with 800 pixels width. I’d also  like to see an option for a dedicated number row. Haptics can always be improved too but right now I’m very happy and importantly, no longer lusting after hardware keyboards on my mobile devices.

Anyone else experienced this cross-over point with a mobile on-screen keyboard?

I’ve been sent this image of an interesting keyboard / case accessory that the Viewsonic people are an accessory manufacturer is working on and I guess feelings about this are going to be polarized. On one hand you’ll have the people that see it as a netbook and query the total price of the package. On the other you’ll have people interested in the modular and touch aspect of this setup.

Certainly a netbook would be cheaper but what about one that has touch, removable keyboard and auto-rotation and a case?

I hope this is a wired solution though. There’s nothing worse than running out of battery on a Bluetooth keyboard when you’re in the middle of something.

We’ve just come from a meeting with Samsung where they pulled out a rather nice keyboard accessory…

Full gallery here.

This was a prototype. Pricing not known but we’re guessing it will be well over 50 Euros.

Video coming very shortly.

We’ve just come from a meeting with Samsung where they pulled out a rather nice keyboard accessory…

Full gallery here.

This was a prototype. Pricing not known but we’re guessing it will be well over 50 Euros.

Video coming very shortly.

The first Android tablets are soon to hit our stores in what can only be described as the tip of a very large iceberg, every major and not so major manufacturer has a device on the horizon it would seem. Text entry on these Android devices is going to be important as it will be done through a virtual on-screen keyboard and plays a big part in the overall experience of a device.

Swype has a different approach to text entry which involves moving your finger over the letters in the word you require rather than individually pressing each letter. I thought the best way to show this to you is in a video;

Already major manufacturers are recognising the potential of this type of text input and even the upcoming Motorola Droid X [product details] comes with Swype as the standard text input method.

Although the Swype beta is now closed you can still register for the next test and hopefully we should see this Android market soon.

The first Android tablets are soon to hit our stores in what can only be described as the tip of a very large iceberg, every major and not so major manufacturer has a device on the horizon it would seem. Text entry on these Android devices is going to be important as it will be done through a virtual on-screen keyboard and plays a big part in the overall experience of a device.

Swype has a different approach to text entry which involves moving your finger over the letters in the word you require rather than individually pressing each letter. I thought the best way to show this to you is in a video;

Already major manufacturers are recognising the potential of this type of text input and even the upcoming Motorola Droid X [product details] comes with Swype as the standard text input method.

Although the Swype beta is now closed you can still register for the next test and hopefully we should see this Android market soon.

I was really surprised that Apple didn’t do anything “magical inch or “revolutionary inch with the iPad’s [Portal page] on-screen-keyboard. The iPhone’s was definitely revolutionary because it was probably the first truly viable OSK thanks to some intelligent software design and a capacitive screen instead of a resistive one. The iPad’s keyboard has that same inteiilgent software design, and a nice big capacitive screen. The problem is the big part. The iPad’s keyboard works well, but it really only works well if you can set it down on a desk in front of you so that you can touch type on it. If you are walking around with it in your hands, it works quite poorly for thumb typing. This fact alone makes the iPad annoying to use for typing if you don’t have something to set it down on.

Even since I got the iPad in my hands, I’ve been wishing for a Dial Keys-style keyboard implementation. Dial Keys, if you’ll recall, is a piece of Windows based software that was designed for touchscreen UMPCs. Dial Keys places a split radial keyboard at the corners of the device, which puts keys right in the range of one’s thumbs. If Apple allowed developers to modify the keyboard on the device, I’m sure we would have already seen something similar.

I made some mockup graphics to put on the iPad just to see what Dial Keys on the iPad would look like: