"I’m in favor of keeping dangerous
weapons out of the hands of fools. Let’s start with typewriters"
— Frank Lloyd Wright

While no one person can be said to invented
the typewriter (Wikipedia
entry), in 1867, Christopher Sholes, Carlos Glidden, and Samuel
W. Soule introduced a device that later became one of the most popular
tools of our age. With the backing of Remington and Sons, the typewriter
made its major commercial debut to great success (once the second iteration
was available). This new technological marvel, in the end, also brought
the world of QWERTY,
Dvorak,
and even FARWP (FrogPad’s
top right-hand row) to our fingertips. But ever in need of smaller and
more efficient capabilities, the keys either have to get smaller (and
more difficult for my sausage-sized fingers to hit) or we have to change
technologies to fit the same amount of functions into a more compact
area. Which brings us back to FrogPad’s
Bluetooth iFrog (or FrogPad). A small device that seems to be packed
with features. But can it keep up with the QWERTY
world? Could this be the next revolution in our input capabilities (especially
for those interested in wearable computers)? Read on for the full review:

WHAT’S HOT

    The FrogPad is great for small areas or
even wearable computing due to its small form factor. The fact that
this unit has Bluetooth communication capabilities adds to the portability.

FEATURES

    First, let’s review the FrogPad’s features
(copied verbatim from FrogPad):

On the back of the
unit we find the serial number, and the standard FCC / patent info.
There are also two rubber "feet" to keep the FrogPad from
shifting about while typing.

    The
FrogPad also comes with a plastic slipcase that slides behind the
unit when not in use. It too has two rubber feet. From this view,
you can see the entire FrogPad and its chording
capabilities. Pressing the button by itself produces the alpha character
on the top left. Pressing the Space button (with the green square)
with one of the alpha characters produces the key on the lower left,
for example.

Moving to the top
left, we find the USB charging port. Unfortunately, while you can
use the FrogPad while charging, one cannot use the port for connecting
to the device (instead of Bluetooth if necessary, such as while
on a plane).

The USB charger is really nothing more than a standard
USB ZIP-LINQ and wall adapter. The FrogPad can be charged using
either a wall outlet or USB port.

   
On the top right is the power switch and pairing button. Which brings
us to to my first major complaint. Each and every time you turn
off the unit you must re-pair with whatever you wish to use the
FrogPad with. And the so-called "Pairing Button" is more
like a reset button on a PDA (buried inside a small hole). Reminds
me of the early Palm days where one needed to carry a paperclip
in case a reset was necessary. This can severely limits the portability
component even if my PDA stylus has a built-in reset pin.

When the Pairing Button
is pressed, a red light on the left side of the FrogPad begins to
blink. This light also doubles as the charging light. If you are
using the slip-on case, however, you cannot see this light at all.

    Once
the unit is on and paired, then the lights on the front face will
start to display important information. In the above example, my
laptop’s NUMLOCK is on, and I have the Number mode selected on the
FrogPad itself. In this mode, pressing a key would produce the character
signified in black at the right lower-most section. For example,
the "I" key would display a "1". If I were to
just press the "Number" key down and then press the "I" key, then the orange left lower-most action would be done (Backspace
in this case). While this may seem a little confusing at first,
once you work through the manual and tutorial a few times, things
start to make a lot more sense.

    Here
we see the Shift Lock enabled (using the Space+Shift combination).
You can also press the Shift key by itself (which causes the Shift
key light to flash) and the next character will be capitalized.
Or, as a final option, you can press the Shift key plus the character
you wish to capitalize (if it is a black character, otherwise this
doesn’t work). This works flawlessly on the PC, but on my X50v,
using a capital letter can sometimes lead to the next character
not being typed at all. This only seems to happen with certain combinations
and has gotten better with subsequent HID2GO releases (more on that
later).

The CTRL and ALT keys
can be reproduced, as can the F-keys.

Connecting the FrogPad
to the PC was really quite simple. No drivers were needed for my
XP Pro configuration.

After searching for
and double-clicking the FrogPad (in My Bluetooth Places), you are
asked whether you want to connect to the device.

   
A PIN code is then required to Pair the devices. On the PDA, one
can create their own PIN, but on the PC, the code is random and
changes from session to session. As soon as pairing is available,
you can then press the "Number" button on the FrogPad,
type in the PIN, and press Enter.

You are then connected
and ready to go.

    Connecting
the FrogPad to a PDA (in this case my X50v) is a completely different
beast. You must first install HID2GO (available from FrogPad).
Without this software you cannot use the FrogPad (at least at the
time of this review). In the example above, you can see the main
HID2GO tab. This application doesn’t really seem to fit with the
rest of the package. It has quite a few odd bugs and doesn’t really
look like a finished product at all (more like alpha than even beta
level readiness in my opinion). As I mentioned earlier in the review,
this software is being updated, and bugs are being fixed with every
release. At the time of this review, I was using version 0.7.10F.

To Connect to the
FrogPad, you must first search for it. This takes a couple of seconds.

You can then move on to the Connect tab and pair
the device (using the PIN of your choice).

Once connected you
are instructed to go to the Test tab in order to test the device.

After your first connection,
this step isn’t really necessary. You can open up your applications
and begin working. Strangely, you cannot return to the Today screen
while HID2GO is running (a bug) – hopefully this will be fixed soon.

If you are having
trouble connecting (of if you are just curious to see the interior
workings of the HID2GO software), there is a Logfile tab.

    You
can also, using the Setup tab, configure what the F-keys do on your
PDA. Unfortunately, only the default applications seem to be listed
– no third party applications can be inserted here at this point.
Which really makes this feature useless to me, as I have replaced
most of the default applications.

    While
the instructions do indicate that this is really a one-handed device,
I did find that I was almost twice as fast (as a beginner) using
two hands and my own method of 6-finger touch typing. With a little
practice, I could see myself easily reaching 30-40 WPM (which is
nowhere near my 100+ WPM on a standard keyboard). But for the purposes
of portability, it might be worth the sacrifice.

I did attempt to use
the FrogPad with a couple of games (while connected to the laptop),
but found that the response was slow and unusable. Apparently the
USB version of the FrogPad does not have this limitation.

HELP & SUPPORT

    Along with the included user manual,
Quick Start Guide, and tutorial CD, FrogPad
has a great website.
There are contact links as well as a forum and a FAQ.

BUGS AND WISHES

    I
have quite a few items on my wishlist:

• Fix
  the HID2GO software (lots and lots of bugs and oddities)
• Make
  the Pairing Button a switch or actual button, not a "reset
  hole"
• Give
  the user the ability to connect via USB when Bluetooth is not
  available (ie on planes)
• Move
  the pairing/charging light to the face of the unit (so you can
  see it even with the case on)
• Fix
  gaming response issues

PURCHASING

    You
can buy the
Bluetooth Frogpad directly from FrogPad.
The price shown is $195.99 for the Left or Right hand with mobile
drivers (HID2GO).

PROS

Small
form factor

Included
slip-on case for protection

CONS

Price!

Must re-pair
any time the device is turned off

Pairing
button is inside a "reset button" sized hole (and
no reset pin is included)

No USB connection if Bluetooth is unavailable