Size does matter. Larry Garfield takes a magnifying glass to the new Palm Ultra-Thin Keyboard, and likes what he sees. Who needs a laptop?
Most handhelds can't replace a laptop for data entry. Most handhelds simply don't have fast enough text entry to compete with a real keyboard, even with a thumb board attached. Think Outside's Stowaway folding keyboard made waves for giving handheld users a full size keyboard that was only a bit larger than their handheld, and fit easily into a purse or backpack. Now, Think Outside has done it again with the Stowaway XT, marketed by Palm as the Palm Ultra Thin Keyboard for the Universal Connector.
 | The Palm UT keyboard expands from super-thin to a full-sized keyboard in seconds
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The Palm UT keyboard is amazingly small at only 13.6 x 9.9 x 1.2 cm when closed, making it thinner than most handhelds and only slightly wider - easily small enough for a jacket or pants pocket. A bulge on one side hides the connector for the handheld. The casing consists mostly of brushed aluminum, which gives the keyboard a very nice, professional feel.
The keyboard opens by pressing a button on one end, which releases the catch for the top half. It then unfolds with one hinge point to a full QWERTY keyboard, minus the number key row, complete with full, desktop-sized key size and key pitch. The number keys, as with many portable keyboards, are doubled up on the top letter row. The keyboard locks open, making it rigid enough to rest on a lap while typing.
To connect the handheld, a user will simply slide the black bulge outward to reveal the connector and let the rest to pop up, a process which can take as little as five seconds. To unlock the keyboard, the user need only slide a small switch on the top-right of the keyboard to unlock it, then fold closed and press to lock. It "just works".
In addition to the alphanumeric keys, the keyboard also includes configurable Control and Alt keys, four directional arrow keys, and the usual assortment of Shift, Backspace, Enter, and so on, in most cases exactly where they would be on a desktop keyboard. The spacebar splits in half to allow the keyboard to fold. Because of the reduced key count, there are not one but two Fn keys, color coded Green and Light Blue. Many keys serve triple duty, with a normal, Green Fn, and Blue Fn function.
The Green functions map to punctuation characters usually found on the number keys, as well as others not common on US keyboard such as Yen and Euro characters. The Blue functions map to various Palm-specific operations, including eight launch keys for the standard applications and silk-screened applications as well as common button commands such as OK, Done, New, Send, and so on. Pressing any of those while a button with that name is on screen will activate the appropriate button. Even the menu is available and fully navigable. Depending on the application, it is almost possible to operate the handheld almost completely from the keyboard. Almost.
The keys have a good tactile feel with good responsiveness. In writing this article on the keyboard itself, our speed and accuracy were as good as if not better than most laptop keyboards, and we can touch type fairly fast.
The new keyboard driver lets the user turn on or off key clicks and change the repeat speed of a key press. It also lets the user map Command + number key presses to any application in RAM, although it doesn't mention that getting the number will also require pressing the Blue Fn key. The keyboard can also be remapped to any installed layout. By default, the driver includes standard US, US-Dvorak, Japanese, and X layouts. An online help system also lets the user see how to type accent marks and other advanced characters.
We had no trouble installing the driver, and it appeared perfectly stable. Some applications didn't interpret more complext text navigation properly, such as selecting text by word on the handheld, but that appeared to be application-specific.
 | | The Palm UT keyboard has full-sized keys for fast touch-typing |
Conclusion
There's not much to the Palm Ultra-Thin keyboard, which is what we like about it. A full size keyboard this small is an engineering marvel, and it's a well-designed device to boot. Not having dedicated number keys may be a problem for some people, but that is our only complaint. Laptop makers around the world should be very worried.
The Palm Ultra-Thin Keyboard is available now from the Palm web site. It works with any Universal Connector handheld, including the Palm Tungsten T. It costs $99.00 USD.
- What's positive: Super-thin, full-sized keys
- What's negative: No dedicated number keys
Overall: 
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