I was hoping to provide another option for UMPC and slate Tablet PC owners that long for a keyboard, but no such luck. Elekson, a UK-based company, just rolled out (or is that unrolled) their Bluetooth fabric keyboard earlier this week; alas the only driver support is for Palm, Symbian, Blackberry and Windows Mobile. Either way, ZDNet UK got a feel for the fabric keyboard and found it fairly usable; you can read their initial impressions here on the 40-pound unit. Uh, that’s the price, not the weight….
No, the roll-em-up keyboard is only 68 grams in weight and rolls up into a little 48mm x 126mm x 32mm bundle. Unrolled, the 63-key QWERTY device takes up a 306mm x 114mm footprint; power is supplied via two AAA batteries. Not only fold-able, the keyboard can also be washed, since it’s effectively flat and the fabric can handle a little water. Based on the flat, resistive touch method, it would likely take some time to get used the keys; in fact ZDNet UK found that they had to put a bit of pressure on the keys to use it. I’ll stick with inking and my Think Outside keyboard, thanks!
-kct
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