Customer Reviews

Bluetooth FrogPad Left Handed PC or Mac ( BLMAC1500L )

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The idea was to use this to be more effecient in my daily work. I do a great amount of work with forms that are not Tab friendly. This isn't the secret to working more effeciently.

Contrary to the documentation, you will not get anything close to a normal typing speed out of this. The buttons have a very heavy touch, meaning your hand will tire far to quickly. The key combo's are easy to learn it's true, but just knowing what to press isn't a great help. And complex passwords are basicaly impossible to type on this unit.

The driver support is laughably bad, I attempted to pair this with my treo 650 and my laptop both, and both times it was a nightmare. Driver support is strictly third party, so problems installing and setting up are pretty much your own to deal with.

That having been said, there is a definite market for this unit, though a specialized one. Disabled people will find this a huge step up from anything else on the market.

If you frequently enter information into web forms--on message boards, in chat rooms, on intranet sites at work, or elsewhere for other reasons--avoid this product. I'll briefly explain the problem.

There are fifteen letter keys that type fifteen letters when pressed alone. By pressing another key, the Green key, in combination with the letter keys, one types the other eleven letters and some other characters. The letter keys double as number keys and arithmetic symbols, and twelve of them triple as function keys. To type numbers, one activates the Orange key. To press function keys, one uses the Green key while the Orange key is activated--but recall that one types eleven of the letters using the Green key, without the Orange key activated.

The user accidentally activates the Orange key very frequently (most often when he's using the Orange key to press Backspace or Delete, but also in many other situations). Since the user won't know Orange is activated right away, he'll continue typing. If he types 'L', his browser will refresh, because 'L' is typed by Green + H, and with Orange activated, that's F5.

For about two months, I exclusively used a left-handed FrogPad. I was extremely excited about being able to point with a pen tablet with my right hand while typing with my left, so that I wouldn't have to keep picking up and putting down the stylus. I was losing information multiple times per day from hitting F5, however, so I packed it up and moved back to QWERTY.

Of course, the same design flaw causes one to press the other function keys. When one accidentally presses F1, for instance, the Help window pops up.

I've spent hours in FrogPad's Technical Support forum urging them to address this problem (and explaining the simple solution), but I think they fear that if they admit there's a problem, it will hurt their sales. I hope they plan to fix the problem in the next product revision because a safe FrogPad would finally deliver all that I hoped to receive when I spent [money] and tens of hours of practice[...]

I would only recommend this product, in its current flawed, dangerous, and expensive state, to people with one functional hand. Some people tout its portability and small footprint, but if one's using a laptop, he has a portable QWERTY keyboard included and exposed. One might be tempted to use a FrogPad with a tablet PC, but I'd recommend a folding QWERTY instead. They are just as portable as FrogPads, and they won't cause data loss.

This product takes a long time to learn so I do not recommend it for shorter-duration injuries (broken arm). By the time you learn it you'll be able to use a keyboard again.

Customer service from the FrogPad company is very poor.

The BlueTooth FrogPad is a fantastic product- I have had mine for a while now and use it to type and/or input macro keyboard functions with my left hand while I use the computer mouse with my right hand. My productivity has increased substantially. It does take commitment to learn how to type one-handed, however it is well worth the time and effort. The product itself is well-crafted and should withstand years of heavy use. Connectivity is straightforward and it plays nicely with a number of different kinds of products, including my iPhone. Give it a try, put in the effort, and benefit from the rewards!

Pros: Small, light, works with computers, PDAs, smart phones, etc. Great design. Great conversation starter.

Cons: You have to learn something new. But once you do, it is well worth it.

I did find the frogpad to be helpful and I was extremely excited to use it. The keys were easy to remember. No problem there and in time I would be able to find them with ease quickly. My main problem with the Bluetooth Frogpad is its IPAQ driver. I tried and tried to get it to work with no success. The instructions were simple but vague. There were no troubleshooting instructions. It is my guess that the driver just doesn't and hasn't been tested thoroughly. Customer service was useless to help me. I got no responses that was helpful. I got no response except to tell me which driver to use even though I explained the problem and the steps that I took to install the driver and activate the frogpad. They were useless. For a product this expensive you would think that customer service would be exceptional. The bluetooth frogpad worked on PC after the frogpad was fully charged. I could only get it to work with one PC though. Maybe in was me but "out of the box" should be a literal sales pitch. So, I should be able to use it on any system.

The product is neat. Just the driver issues. Overall I am very disappointed with customer service and the technical team. Either they don't know what they are doing or they are ignoring there customers. I tried to get an RMA for return because if it does not work with the PDA it is useless to me. I was ignored. I think my lawyer will be more successful.