deluxe series

Like a lot of other new PDA owners, I found myself desperate for an alternative to Graffiti within two days of picking up the stylus of my Visor Neo for the first time. I didn't mind the (slow, aggravating, inaccurate) handwriting system for quick functions like jotting down assignments or contacts, but when it came to typing notes in class, I simply couldn't keep up.

That's when I started looking at the GoType and Stowaway keyboards. I liked the small storage and large full foldout size of the Stowaway, but ultimately decided on the GoType because of its lower cost and sturdier design. Many of my classes are held in lecture halls with those tiny, barely-adequate fold-away writing desks, and I also find myself wanting to type up documents on my lap when I'm travelling or not at a desk. In these situations, the one-piece construction of the GoType excels over the Stowaway. What's the point of getting the compact Stowaway if you have to carry a 14" sheet of plywood around with you to stabilize it?

I toss this keyboard without any additional protection into a backpack stuffed with books, keys, and art supplies several times a day without any concern for its safety, and haven't noticed any wear and tear on it since I bought it 4 months ago. Since buying the GoType, I've completely replaced my laptop with my Visor at school and on the road. Using either the bundled text software or Documents to Go, I've typed reams of notes, completed homework assignments, answered long emails, and written entire papers on my Visor, things that would have taken me an eternity to do with Graffiti. This keyboard has made it possible for me to go pretty much paperless at college, with the added benefit of weighing at least 5 pounds less (Visor included) than the Toshiba Satellite laptop I used to lug to campus.

Other features I like are the foldback panel that allows you to keep your bulky Springboard modules plugged in (very handy when I want to use my Visorphone for wireless Internet access), and the USB Hotsync cable.

Only one negative: As others have mentioned, the keyboard *IS* rather small, especially for men, and may take some getting used to. The problem is not so much with the width of the keyboard, which is only a bit more narrow than the average laptop, but with the height of each key, which honestly appears to be only 2/3 the measurement of a normal key, making it very easy to accidentally type "3" instead of "e" or something similar. (Regular keys=square; GoType keys=rectangle with 3/8" height) If you are concerned about this, I recommend heading to a Best Buy or CompUSA nearby and testing out the GoType for typing comfort before ordering.

I recently purchased the GoType keyboard for the Handspring Visor directly from the Landware website, and unfortunately have found it to be, for me, an almost completely unusable product.

This isn't to say that it's a BAD product, however. For a lot of people, it's no doubt extremely useful. The keyboard itself is very well uilt and fully functional, with nicely laid out keys. Though a bit bigger than the Stowaway when not in use, it's still pretty compact, and can easily fit inside a bookbag. And while the outer casing can get a bit scratched and dinged, it does a good job of keeping the keyboard itself safe from damage.

But now the bad part. If you have large hands, and especially if you hunt and peck, this keyboard is very difficult to use. The keys are just too close together, and have a very low profile, requiring you to press them down firmly right in the middle of the key to register the keystroke. Using the GoType, while still faster than graffiti, has cut my typing speed down to less than half of normal (and I'm not that quick to begin with), and long term typing leaves my wrists sore. In a lot of cases I'm actualy faster using the stylus and the onscreen keyboard on my Visor, and can actually type faster using a thumbboard.

To make matters worse, the keyboard did not come with the promised bundled software (TakeNote and WordSleuth). The Landware website I bought it from was advertising a free bundle with Blue Nomad's excellent Wordsmith program, but even that was a bit misleading: I had to email their support department to discover that the software is not "bundled" with the keyboard, you have to download it, then email them for the serial number, then email Blue Nomad for the registration key (none of this is ever explained in the documentation or their website; I only discovered any of this after emailing technical support; to their credit, they did respond very promptly to the email, though I still don't have TakeNote or WordSleuth as promised).

All in all, the GoType hasn't been a good experience for me. If you have smaller hands it might very well be a great buy, but for my money it just doesn't cut it.

This thing is really great! I got my Visor Prism a good while ago, and since I'm finally back in school I started looking at keyboards. Of course you all know that the choices for a full size keyboard are the Gotype! and the stowaway. In almost any case I'm willing to sacrafice compactness for functionality. Which perfectly matches the scenario of the Gotype! vs. Stowaway. All my friends that have Visors(3) thought that the stowaway was the best by far just because it folds down to pocket size. But I was wishing on the Gotype! to be the best. It has shortcut keys programmable for up to 18 different functions. The keys aren't that small, they are actually better than keys on a full size keyboard. Although, I must admit, after using the Gotype! for a while, when I went back to a full size keyboard it seemed huge. The typing is so great I even typed up a whole paper on the palm os. With the portability compared to a normal keyboard, as I was typing my paper, I was able to take the keyboard all over the house with me. The absolute ONLY problem I had was when the keyboard wouldn't respond I had to do a soft reset, and this only happened twice. The first day I brought it to school my friends were amazed. All day they were begging me to try it. I even used it for an interview for our school paper. This makes any typing application perform ten times better. And this also works with AOL Mail for IMing and checking mail. My friends are insane for this keyboard, I will be using this for as long as I have my Visor Prism.