N.B. Not originally written as a review but as a description of the item.
Item:
Stowaway BlueTooth Keyboard, which arrived in 24 hrs from Expansys UK... Although I believe that it's currently available worldwide.
Note: This keyboard is exactly the same as the standard iGo Stowaway Ultra-Slim Bluetooth Keyboard (which sells at twice the price!), but is branded with a DELL logo... And doesn't include a zip-case.
This is a truly amazing piece of kit, I spent the first hour just opening it and closing it! The hinge mechanism looks as though it can't possibly work... but work it does and beautifully too. Opening it is simple but once it clicked into position, I confess, to my utter shame, that I had to glance at the instructions before I could figure out how to unlock it and close it again!
Pairing the keyboard to the
N95 took about two minutes, including loading the driver program into the phone, you can't go wrong. A very nice aspect of it is that you can designate the keys to perform virtually any function by selecting the key and then the function that you require from a listed display on the
N95, in exactly the same way that you set up the Active standby apps on the phone... it couldn't be easier!
The keys themselves are fractionally larger than the keys on my normal-sized laptop, with a very nice 'feel' to them, no tacky plastic and lack of feedback here! ...Definitely a quality item... Talking of the keyboard, I see that some reviewers have bemoaned the fact that the 'Space Bar' is split... Apart from the obvious fact that it has to be, or how else would it fold? d'uh! Apart from the fact that it needs to be split, it's a very useful feature in itself, as Left Function key + Left half of SpaceBar operates the left softkey, same function key + Right half , operates the Right SoftKey, it quickly becomes intuitive. They've thought of almost everything... It even goes automatically to standby, indicated by the tiny green BT-indicator light extinguishing after a period of inactivity or a lost BT connection, no wonder the batteries are reported to last so long...
On closing it up, it turns itself off and turns on automatically when opened again, it finds and pairs with the phone very quickly... a matter of seconds and it's ready to go... Keypresses result in the apparently instantaneous appearance of the on-screen text , no perceptible lag that I can see at all. It's very responsive indeed to any keypress, including non-character instructions to the phone.
As for any risk of it collapsing when open... No chance of that happening, it locks solidly into the open position and it's as firm as a rock, pick it up by one end and shake it and it doesn't even wobble... If only the Stowaway engineers had designed the
N95 slider!
So far, whilst experimenting, I've made and answered phone calls, with the
N95 yards from the keyboard, switching to 'Loudspeaker' on answering and even going into the menu and various other options whilst still talking... I've also surfed the Net on it, used the Music-Player and even sent one or two SMS messages! ;) ... All this without touching the phone at all... So far I haven't needed to program any extra keys to do this, meaning that the
N95 is almost fully controllable from the keyboard as it stands... Though I haven't been able to find the keys that turns the phone off & on... yet! ;)
[I've since found the 'OFF' key]
I paid 40GBP for it but to give some indication of how impressed I am with the engineering, build-quality and functionality of it, if I'd had no option but to pay double that, I'd still be delighted with it!
... It'll be a long time before anyone betters this device, I suspect...
INFO: You can download the program/driver from HERE, Select your phone as the N73... If you select N95, you'll see that the software for it is currently under testing. The N73 option works fine for me. Also on there is the manual in .pdf format, you'll need that too.
Seasons Greetings, Health, Happiness and Good Fortune to all in the New Year.
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