keyboards

My biggest concern was the keyboard. Having used the Prada phone, I expected the worst. Surprisingly, the iPhone keyboard starts to feel comfortable fairly quickly. Within a few days, I went from typing two out of every three letters incorrectly down to just one in five wrong. That gives hope.

E-mail, though, is another story, making me long for my BlackBerry. Sure, Yahoo allegedly provides the same RIM-type push mail. But it's simply not as quick or easy to knock out a sentence or two on the iPhone.

More annoyingly, it appears there is no way to delete all … Read more

We don't mind a little weirdness in the pursuit of better ergonomics, but we really dislike funky mice and keyboards that require you to relearn how to type and/or mouse. That's why we're particularly excited about Logitech's Cordless Desktop Wave desktop set, which the company announced this morning.

For $89 when it hits stores this August, the Cordless Desktop Wave will give you two major ergonomic features. The first is that, as the name suggests, the keys are arranged along a wave-like pattern that ripples across the keyboard. This design is supposed to account for … Read more

Given that we're long past the age of piano dancing, this might be the closest we get to playing any type of keyboard that's not connected to a computer. Yamaha, which is proving itself in the digital music world with products like its virtual drum set, has developed the equivalent of painting by numbers for the piano to debut in August.

Its EZ-200 keyboard has a "follow-the-lights" system that even tone-deaf types like us can handle, as well as touch-sensitive keys that sound louder as they're struck harder. "All you have to worry about … Read more

As stylish as the Prada phone is, the touch screen problem I wrote about earlier hasn't gotten better. It's often frustrating.

I say this because of all these great iPhone ads we're seeing on television. When I look at the keypad displayed, I wonder if it's all going to be as simple and perfect as they make it look.

I'm skeptical. It seems as if it would be very easy to overlap onto a different key. At least on the BlackBerry, you know when it happens. It's a matter of feel. You immediately know … Read more

I grew up with computers in the home, almost. I think I was just eight years old when my father brought home a teletype machine (with integral 110 baud modem) connected to the GE600 mainframe computer. My mother could type up a storm on her IBM selectric, but I was strictly hunt-and-peck on that noisy, strange-smelling teletype. But that teletype really inspired my newfound passion for writing stories, for when I told it to print -- BANGA-BANGA-BANGA-BANGA-KERCHUNK-BANGA-BANGA-BANG -- it printed at a full 110 baud, or almost half as fast as my mom's finger-sprints. Incredible!… Read more

Given that fashion is clearly the dominant theme of the day so far, we think it should be applied to some computer stuff before it's too late. But the last place we thought to look would be Office Max.

Still, to its credit, the retailer is planning a line of snazzy peripherals that will undoubtedly stand out amid the sea of printer paper and blank DVDs. The "G-Cube" collection will spice up boring old mice, keyboards and the like this fall in themes with such names as "Enchanted" and "Lux Leopard," according to … Read more

We wouldn't exactly call it a fetish, but some of us at Crave have been known for our fondness of wood finishes on gadgets. (Well, not all gadgets.) And it's even better when the item in question is made entirely of wood, not just trim.

So this keyboard from Japan's Marubeni Infotec naturally caught our eye when it was spotted on Tokyomango. It's not the first of its kind, of course, but it's still one of the nicer ones we've seen. Even if it's not made of bamboo.

It's not often that a product neatly sums up something that we particularly dislike about technology, but this one pretty much does. And it can be described in one word: buttons.

Buttons on the keyboard, monitor, phones--you name it, and we've probably been baffled by it at one time or another, which is why we much prefer the minimalist approach in our computing. The people at P.I. Engineering obviously disagree, because their solution to more efficient technology is more buttons. A whole 16 of them, in fact, which you can stick just about anywhere (no off-color jokes, … Read more

It's not quite as dangerous as butt dialing, but cat typing can have its scary moments, like when PayPal or your IM client are open and in front.

So I am intrigued by a software utility called Pawsense, which detects when a cat is walking on your keyboard and shuts down key input within a couple of strokes. OK, while the odds are astronomical, your cat could randomly walk-type a vile obscenity into a memo you're writing while you are up getting a cup of coffee. You come back to the computer, fail to proof the thing, send … Read more