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Seiko ThumBoard
October 22, 2001
When the box arrived I could hardly wait to get it open. And I wasn’t disappointed— this thing is great! Don’t get me wrong, you can still type faster on a Stowaway keyboard. But for portable data entry, my choice from now on will be my new ThumBoard. It’s a lot less annoying than Graffiti, even though I’ve had a few days of experience with it as opposed to almost two years worth with Graffiti.
But let me start at the beginning. When you first receive the ThumBoard you get the accessory itself, an instruction manual (which you don’t really need), a floppy disk containing the driver software, and a postcard you can use to get a free carrying case for your Palm/ThumBoard combo. Just put the disk in your floppy drive, install the driver to your handheld, attach the ThumBoard, and you’re ready to go.
I mean that in the literal sense—I’ve never used a RIM Blackberry or any other thumb-typing device, but I found myself quite comfortable with the ThumBoard almost immediately. In fact, I found that if I just “forgot” about this being a new input method, my data entry was remarkably fast and error-free. If I really thought about it, my errors tended to increase and I wasn’t as fast. The only thing that really took some getting used to was entering extended characters like punctuation. Since the shift key is used to obtain capital letters, the function key is used to access punctuation marks. I quickly adjusted though and was soon typing like a champ.
Thank goodness though, that one press of the shift or function key activates it until you hit the next key, and that they also thought to include a caps lock key. That’s a mark of intelligent design that I really like. Also, since the ThumBoard covers the entire Graffiti area, you won’t be able to use “sliding hacks” while you’re using this accessory. Seiko did include function keys that allow you to access both the silkscreen buttons and the four hard buttons on the front of the unit. I also found that the ThumBoard, while made of plastic, seems durable enough to hold up to long use, and that it doesn’t add all that much bulk to my handheld. While it was designed to be attached all the time, except during HotSync, I find it more convenient to carry my Palm and the ThumBoard separately, attaching it when necessary. The driver software, which takes up 20K, is perfectly able to co-exist with the driver for my folding keyboard, so I don’t have to worry about enabling/disabling either one.
That doesn’t mean that I’m getting rid of the folding keyboard for my Palm m505— it’s still the fastest entry method for me. But the ThumbBoard is so convenient that I can use it anywhere, even when I don’t have a table or a lap available for the full-size keyboard. I like it so much that it’s earned a permanent place in my mobile arsenal. And at only $40 online at Amazon and other outlets, it’s quite a bargain. If you’ve been wanting a keyboard for a while but didn’t want to shell out $100 for a folding keyboard, you might want to try the ThumBoard and see if it meets your needs. The Seiko ThumBoard is available for the HandSpring Visor/Deluxe/Platinum, Palm V/Vx, m500, and m505.
