Targus PA745U Click 'n' Type Keyboard

by Targus

Product Details

Product Manual [524kb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00007JQNZ
• Item model number: PA745U
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: November 25, 2002

Product Description

Style: ThumbPad for iPaq

From the Manufacturer

The Targus Click 'n' Type keyboard is a very small "thumb type" keyboard that clips on to the bottom of the serial port on your HP iPAQ 3800 or 3900 series PDA. The cohesive union between PDA and keyboard allows for convenient typing. There is no need for an external stand as PDA + keyboard behaves as one integrated unit. Ideally suited for short messages, notes and PIM maintenance, the Click 'n' Type keyboard makes an attractive addition for the mobile user who is looking for a small, lightweight, and versatile, portable keyboard.

Features

• Lightest and smallest keyboard for PDA text typing
• Lets you get more out of your HP iPAQ 3800/3900 series PDA
• Clips on to the bottom of the serial port of your iPAQ
• Cohesive union between PDA & Keyboard allows for convenient typing
• No need for an external stand as PDA + Keyboard behaves as one unit
• Ideal for short messages, notes, & PIM maintenance - Get more done and Save TONS of Free Time
• No batteries required
• Very Low Power Consumption
• 4 way direction keypad for cursor control
• Built in key functions -- Enter commands and options with special function keys

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Much faster than Graffiti, but still has its flaws., June 10, 2002

By 

Britt Scharringhausen (Ithaca, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Targus PA700U ThumbPad for Handspring Visor - Color Matched (Office Product)

The ThumbPad is very lightweight, but seems quite durable. The Visor slides into a nice solid dock with the ThumbPad, unlike other mini-keyboards I've seen where the connection is very tenuous, and you have to be really careful to support the unit to avoid putting any weight on the connection. With the ThumbPad the can just hold the keyboard, which easily supports the weight of the Visor for comfortable typing.

The keyboard layout has a pretty big flaw. There's only one shift key, at the lefthand side. Would including a shift key on the right side as well have increased the size of the unit by that much? Punctuation is accessed using the "function" key, and, you guessed it, there's only one, on the lefthand side, right next to the quotation mark and apostrophe, making it very awkward to type these symbols. If there were shift and function keys on each side, you wouldn't have to shift your grip on the ThumbPad and it would be much more comfortable.

My biggest frustration with the ThumbPad is a non-fatal but annoying bug. If the ThumbPad is idle too long (on the order of ten seconds), the PDA stops accepting input from the keypad. I have to turn off the PDA, and turn it back on by pressing a key on the ThumbPad, and then I can continue typing normally. My email to tech support has not yet been returned (though it's only been a few days). I had a similar small bug with a different Targus keyboard in the past, which was never resolved, so I think I'll be avoiding their products in the future (when possible--the Visor user doesn't have a LOT of options for peripherals!)

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A neat little thumbboard -- not perfect, but still neat, June 9, 2003

By 

Jonathan Crowe (Shawville, QC, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Targus PA765U ThumbPad Keyboard (Office Product)

The Targus ThumbPad is an external thumbboard that attaches to your Palm via the Universal Connector at the bottom. Rather than covering the buttons and Graffiti area, it extends a couple of inches beneath the handheld, which amazingly rests firmly in place. The ThumbPad is made of plastic and is very light.

It's not nearly as functional as the full-size folding keyboards -- useful extra keys like "New" and "OK" aren't there, but that's to be expected with a keyboard this size. More perplexing, however, is the absence of parenthesis keys. You do have to reach for the stylus and the Palm's own buttons from time to time, and you must resist the temptation to use the ThumbPad's directional keys in the Apps menu -- they don't page up and down.

The fact that the ThumbPad flares outward from the Palm's base gives the keyboard more room and allows the keys to be bigger than the keys that PDAs with built-in thumbboards have. Key action is very nice, as nice as the Tungsten W or C (but with more room) and far nicer than Sony Clie thumbboards. I find typing surprisingly quick. I would have preferred to see sticky Shift, Fn and Control keys, like some built-in thumbboards, since holding down two keys at once is awkward on a keyboard of this type.

Overall I'm quite pleased with this little thumbboard, and look forward to using it to send SMS when my Palm Bluetooth card arrives.

This review was drafted on a Palm m505 using the ThumbPad.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars [...Bad] Connector, June 15, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Targus PA700U ThumbPad for Handspring Visor - Color Matched (Office Product)

This product is junk, due to a cheap connector that broke the first time I tried to remove it form my Visor Pro. The keyboard wouldn't work at all when first installed, then worked intermittently with much adjusting of the position of the keyboard after the connector was cracked. A really disappointing dud.

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