Customer Reviews

Belkin F8U1500 IR Universal Wireless Keyboard

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I have been using pda's for 6 years and most people use them because they aren't sitting at a desk.My current one is the Ipaq 2210/2215 (love it). My first pda was the palm vIIx and I had their portable keyboard. The pda had to attach to it, but it always worked - every key! Great for the hotel stay or any desk.
With this Belkin unit you first have to update your driver (go to the Belkin website). You may have to uninstall other keyboard software first. Some PDA's have the ability to turn the screen sideways in Word or Excel which is good. Mine doesn't and the only way to get it to line up is to sit my pda in the FLIMSY holder UPSIDE down. Trying to line up your pda to the infrared using the adjustable metal shield is difficult. Even when I turned my pda upside down half the keys wouldn't work. If you wasted enough time reading this then I may have saved you $$$ and headache. I won't even offer to sell mine.

Before you buy this keyboard, check Belkin's official PDA compatibility list on their website, at http://web.belkin.com/support/download/downloaddetails.asp?download=1234&lang=1. (If link is deleted by Amazon, go to Belkin d.t com and then PDA accessories and then input devices and then wireless keyboard. You should see a link to the compatibility list in small font.) You should heed the list because you'll see a lot of PDAs (esp. newer ones) not on their list. The biggest problem is if you have a Pocket PC with the IR port on the side, and the Pocket PC does not support screen rotation, then you won't be able to use this even if the driver works. So this is pretty stupid as you can imagine. It would have been so easy for them to make the IR port on the keyboard rotatable.

I had to check the package to make sure we are all talking about the same keyboard here, as I have had a very different experience with this item.

I received it. I opened it. I added a battery, inserted the CD-Rom, installed the drivers and that was it. Works fine.

My PDA is an ipaq 1935, which is not too different from the 1940 mentioned below. The stand has a mirror that rotates on a arm to where the IR is located (on the side on this device). You don't need to lay it flat in landscape mode (which an ipaq 1935 doesn't naturally have) or anything like that. The CD-Rom contains drivers for both 2002 and 2003 operating systems. No other downloads are necessary or encouraged.

Clearly, the design has been improved.

The stand that holds the PDA is not sturdy enough to stay upright in a car crash or on horseback but I see nothing wrong with it. The keyboard may have larger or smaller keys than other designs but there's hardly a learning curve, you get used to it quickly. It allows me to type quickly and accurately.

Anyone using a compatible device that doesn't seem to work should take a good look in the mirror - not at themselves, but at the one on the PDA stand. IR means light, so proper alignment is central to good performance. It swivels, it extends, it just takes a bit of common sense.

So, to sum up: the age of the reviews below indicate the keyboard must have been updated, because all the drivers are there and no strange instructions are provided or needed. It works, it's cheap, it lets you type on your PDA.

I picked up this keyboard for my Toshiba e355 which runs Pocket PC 2003. When I first tried to install the keyboard drivers using the supplied CD, it did not work. You have to go to Belkin's website to download the new drivers for PPC 2003.

After the brief installation mishap, I was typing away. All the keys are much smaller than your regular desktop keyboard, or even most laptop keyboards. The small keys definitely make me type more slowly.

It took a little getting used to such tiny keys, but their size allows the overall size of the keyboard when folded up to be wonderfully compact. I was also very impressed by the stylishness of this Belkin product (compared to the others I've owned which are all office gray). The exterior is made of some metal alloy (like many laptops these days so it doesn't feel like cheap plastic), making the entire keyboard feel like a very sturdy piece of equipment. The silver tone of the exterior is also quite attractive--more so than the Targus model!

Another benefit is that it runs off one AAA battery. Some of the other wireless keyboards use the more expensive (and tiny) lithium batteries.

As for actual typing, I'd say it takes a bit more pressure to use this keyboard compared to most full-size keyboards. The up arrow is placed awkwardly in between the / key and the shift key, making the shift key much less accessible if you have small hands like me.

There are 4 customizable buttons that are very handy. I use them to quickly launch the calculator, Pocket Word, Pocket Excel, and the Contacts program. There are no function (F1 - F12) keys.

The infrared wireless feature is pretty good. I can still move my keyboard around a bit without losing signal. It sure beats additional wires, but I'm looking forward to affordable Bluetooth keyboards someday.

Overall, I am very satisfied with this keyboard. I wasn't sure if it'd work with the Toshiba e355 and PPC 2003, but it does seamlessly! One comment about another review's frustrations in finding out that this keyboard doesn't work with Sony PDA's...Sony makes just about everything proprietary, including its PDA compatibility technology. While shopping for this keyboard, I ran into several ones made by Sony exclusively for Sony PDAs. I'm not surprised that Belkin didn't pay Sony exorbatent fees to license Sony's proprietary technology to make this keyboard Sony-compatible.

The keyboard is made in China, as most accessories are these days. I guess that helps make them so affordable.

I bought this for my iPaq h1940 (a fine pocket PC, I should mention), but if your IR port is on the side, says the Belkin manual, you must lay the PPC sideways to align the port with the keyboard signal.
This is ok I guess if your pocket PC has landscape disply settings. Mine doesn't. Yet Belkin still says this keyboard is "compatible" with the h1940...

Problem #2: Except for the shortcut keys on the left side, none of the keys work! I'll try and see if Belkin can help with that.

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I took the keyboard out of the box, installed a AAA battery (which is supposed to last 360 hours i.e. 45 days of steady typing), then installed the keyboard software on my Sony Clie SJ22. I got it working with the Palm-based word processor WordSmith within 10 minutes. There is no quick start document so you must install the software and manual and print it out. It is about 70 pages and covers all the function keys, installation, etc.

The instructions are a little vague about initial setup. You cannot just position the keyboard anywhere but rather there is a stand that allows you to place your PDA almost vertical and then you must adjust the mirror so that your PDA can receive the signals from the IR light on the keyboard that is above the 5 key. Don't worry if the IR light bulb on the keyboard does not appear to be on. Infrared light is not visible to the naked eye.

Once the unit is set up you press both of the shift keys at the same time and if and when the PDA receives a signal, it displays a small red icon at the bottom of the screen. If you don't get the red icon, reposition the mirror and/or the PDA stand. Once you see the red icon, you are ready to type. However, you can't be moving the stand or the PDA around or you can lose the connection.

If you ever find you can't get the connection, make sure to go into the keyboard software and enable the keyboard. I pressed the function key combination to rotate the screen and since WordSmith does not support rotation, the unit froze and the Belkin keyboard software (on the Clie) was not enabled after the reset so I went back and enabled it and it was okay.

There is no need to pound the keyboard. You can just touch the keys and they respond nicely. I use my right thumb but you can also use your left thumb for a space. I have fairly large hands but am quickly getting use to the keys. I would say I can type about 80-85 % as fast as I can with a regular keyboard. With a little practice I am sure I will be close to 100%.

The keys and their placement is much the same as the standard QWERTY keyboard but of course all the keys are a little small. As with other keyboards, the F and J keys have small protrusions which allow you to find the home keys without looking.

The space bar is split down the middle, which gives your two space bars.
Each key is about 1/2 " by 1/2 ". The unit (unfolded) is 10 ½ by 3 ¾ and a little more than ½ inch thick. It folds in half to 5 ¼ inches long and weighs in at about a½ a pound, however, that does not bother me as It feels quite sturdy.

There are 4 special shortcut keys on the right hand side which bring up the TODO the ADDRESS and APPOINTMENT Calendar and MEMOS

Together with the Function key, these keys also give you Find, Home, Calculatir, and the drop down menus from the application you are in. If there is more than one drop down menu you can use the arrow keys to navigate through them.

There are also many other keys that work together with the function key and which are accessed by pressing the FN key + one other keys which do the following: DONE, DELETE, PAGE UP, PAGE DOWN, CANCEL, OFF, OK and TODAY/NEW and a few other things.

The combination FN + * toggles the Clie's screen between mono mode and color.

The keyboard comes with a three year warranty which is quite impressive.

I also want to point out that before I purchased this unit at amazon.com, I sent a note to Belkin technical support to ask them if the Sony Clie SJ 22 was compatible with their keyboard as someone had posted a review saying it was not.

Support emailed me the next day and said it was compatible, and that the person who wrote the review must have had the wrong driver.

I don't think that was her problem. The stand and he mirror must be set up properly. A battery must be put in. Software must be installed on the PC and then synced to put the keyboard software on the PDA. I used the software that came on the CD Rom that came with the keyboard.

There are a few drawbacks that may or may not be unique to the Sony Clie.

1) The caps lock seems to go on from time to time and I am not sure whether that is because I am inadvertently touching it by accident or not.

2) Every now and then a key starts repeating but if you press any key when it does this, it will stop the repeating. This may be the fault of the WordSmith program. In fact both may be, I am not sure.

(Downloading and installing the latest driver did not correct these two anomalies).

I give it 4 stars because of the 2 drawbacks I mentioned above. I can live with them because the only thing I need my stylus for anymore is to run a non standard Palm program.

Belkin's website documentation is wildly out of date and muddled so it was difficult to know if this keyboard would work with an Axim X51V PPC with ActiveSync 4.2 and WM5.0. But, after a lot of effort, I found it did. (I downloaded the Windows CE 2005 driver). Belkin have really shot themselves in the foot over all this...

Although the PPC stand is very flimsy (the Stowaway one looks much better, and apparently has a better arrangement for beaming) the Belkin has the great advantage of a proper row of number keys at the top. It's a neat little keyboard, and all in all I am very satisfied. Leaving aside the compatibility list and driver problems, I can't understand what all the whingeing is about.

I'm using this keyboard with a Zodiac that defaults to portrait mode and it works fine. It's VERY compact and portable, tho, some sort of slip case would have been a nice touch. Battery life on a Zodiac is definitely shortened so, be sure to disable the keyboard drivers when you're not using it. I even managed to find free third party Dvorak layout drivers for it.

I need a keyboard for my new Toshiba E830 Pocket PC, I give this Belkin a try despite the bad reviews from some Amazon customers. My pocket PC has bluetooth feature, but I choose this over a bluetooth becuase 1) the price and 2) battery life. IR keyboard are 3/5 the price of a bluetooth keyboard, and bluetooth keyboard has 1/10 the battery life of a IR keyboard. I hear a lot of complaint saying this keyboard does not work, and I can tell you it's true. Especially if you have your IR port on the side of your pocket PC with PPC 2003 operating system. It's very hard if not impossible to get the keyboard connected to your PDA's ir port. Since IR technology requires direct face to face connection. My toshiba E830(for any1 want to know what's a E830, it's just an upgraded version of e805, but it's not available in the US, btw I am from Canada) have its IR port on the side, but with Windows Mobile 2003 se, I can switch the screen to lanscape and have let the IR ports face each other directly. I am able to get the keyboard to work out of the box, but I do recommand to get the lastest Windows Mobile 2003 driver from Belkin.com. So much about the setup, let's look at the quality of the keyboard. Belkin failed in this aspect of the keyboard. You wouldn't want to type extensively on this keyboard. The keys are so cramped and small, The space bar is almost at the same level as the edge, which would stop you from pressing it at times. However, you will get used to it, and I typed this review with my new belkin keyboard. I feel it's easier to use the more I play around with it. I never try other IR keyboards, because I like the fact Belkin uses an AAA battery instead of a button battery. I personally would give this keyboard a 4 star. Just keey in mind that, if you are running PPC 2002 and 2003, with the IR port on the side, you should becareful. PPC2003Se users should be fine.

I bought this unit for a Palm IIIe and it was supposed to be compatible. Well it is if you use the stand which is not worth much for on the road, in the car use...you need a stable table. The screen rotation if it worked would allow you to dispose of the stand and have real freedom. Upside down (unusable of course) works great and with good range...but
if the rotate screen software that comes with it worked as it is SUPPOSED to it would be wonderful...but alas it doesn't work and Belkin has said that it has not intention of fixing the software...how much time would it take?....to make this a truly good freedom keyboard?
I have mangaged work arounds like reflecting the signal off foil, chrome etc. to avoid the stand...I actually now have a bent spoon taped to the pda's IR port which works like a TV dish...looks dumb but works....bur really...if they say it works and is compatible...IT SHOULD WORK...yes they said they would take it back but only in trade for another Belkin product. I want to like this keyboard ...it has great potential.