I'm writing this mini-review of the Freedom keyboard using the keyboard itself...
First impressions are that the hardware is nicely designed. On the whole I'm quite pleased -- much faster than thumb-typing!
Some little nits... Some of which could be corrected in the software...
The keyboard doesn't lay exactly flat, so it bangs a bit on a hard surface. Feels nice when sitting on a leather folio, however.
The stand for the berry itself stows away nicely, but isn't heavy enough to hold the berry up if the stand isn't latched into the keyboard. I had been hoping the stand would work as a standalone stand (e.g. for reading e-books), and while it does disconnect entirely from the keyoard, without the keyboard to hold it down it falls over backwards with my 7100t on it.
It takes some getting used to the feel of the keys. I'm a writer and touch type (120 words a minute) so obviously this isn't the same as a full-sized keyboard. The keys miss sometimes, so you get "et" instead of "get". I've had misses most often on b,c,g,i,a keys. Likewise sometimeees you get a bounce (those three e's...!)
Typing punctuation is soooo much simpler, and that's no bounce!
Smileys are much easier to type.
The left shift key is in a comfortable place; the right one is a bit of a pinky-stretch. Not a huge problem.
It's nice to have the user-defined keys (function+0 ... 9) to take you to any application it knows about.
In email composing the arrow keys are always repeating on me - two left/right, two up/down... Function+up/dn gives one up/down, but fn+left/right are escape/enter. In email reading mode, up arrow works but not down arrow -- the manual says to use function+up/down but up/down would make more sense, and up works..... Just not down.
It locked up on me once when I hit escape (function+left arrow) and I had to reboot the berry and click reconnect in the keyboard's application.
In the web browser, up/down don't seem to work at all, nor fn+up/dn. I can't see any way yet to scroll by lines; I would think function+up/dn should do it as that is supposed to be wheel-up/dn, but none of those work.
Hopefully these will all be dealt with in a future driver release. This is with driver version 1.5.
Getting the driver was easy enough, but it helped that I'd read here first. They do have an FAQ on how to install it on their web page if you find it; it was accurate and complete. The link for the BB-specific manual ("v1.4") was a dead link, but with yet another registration I could get a v1.1 manual.
It was a nuisance having to type in the registration key so may times; and it has to be upper case as printed, unlike most reg. keys which aren't case sensitive.
I bought this from SmartPhoneDepot.com, and while it was a bit of a rocky transaction at their end, they took care of me in the end. It's always commendable to see a company take accountability and set things right when they make an error, so they get my thumbs up.
I timed how long it took me to write this review, and my pace was over 800 words an hour, which is at the low end of normal for me (depends if I know what I want to say or not!
. I've never timed my composition speed thumbing it, but I know it's nowhere near that fast.
On the whole -- quite pleased. I'd give it a solid B+.
--Andrew
Freedom keyboard mini review
