Author Topic: Microsoft folding keyboard announced at MWC  (Read 5348 times)

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Offline Oobly

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Microsoft folding keyboard announced at MWC
« on: Tue, 03 March 2015, 06:45:43 »
Microsoft are releasing a folding BT keyboard that looks quite promising for use with mobiles and tablets: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/132994-microsoft-universal-foldable-keyboard-hands-on-portable-productivity

Seems quite portable and may actually be decent to type on. Most likely to have scissor switches. It has a split spacebar, but I suspect there is no programmability and both sides are still assigned to the same function. Interesting, nonetheless.
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Offline Findecanor

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Re: Microsoft folding keyboard announced at MWC
« Reply #1 on: Tue, 03 March 2015, 09:20:19 »
I wonder if it can fold more than the planar.. so that it could be tented.

The Enter and Backslash keys tell me that an ISO version would suck, though.
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Offline dante

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Re: Microsoft folding keyboard announced at MWC
« Reply #2 on: Tue, 03 March 2015, 11:15:41 »
Blah blah blah.

Bring back the Trackball Explorer w/ High DPI please.

Offline oledome

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Re: Microsoft folding keyboard announced at MWC
« Reply #3 on: Tue, 03 March 2015, 13:33:33 »
If I had a tablet I'd consider it as it looks like a Surface keyboard and they aren't bad compared to tablet keyboards in general.

Offline Daniel Beardsmore

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Re: Microsoft folding keyboard announced at MWC
« Reply #4 on: Tue, 03 March 2015, 17:12:33 »
It can't possibly suck more than an Eee PC keyboard, which seemed to be designed with Borrowers in mind.
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Offline jacobolus

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Re: Microsoft folding keyboard announced at MWC
« Reply #5 on: Tue, 03 March 2015, 17:33:52 »
Such a waste not to split those H and T keys and put some other useful keys there. Also, the extra wide leftmost column is stupidly wasteful (backtick should be the same width as backslash).

Seems like all the randomly different width keys could get confusing.

I wonder if one of the spacebars can be reassigned a different function (e.g. backwards delete). If not, too bad. In any event, the spacebars would be better if narrowed by at least 1u, so the modifier keys could be brought into an easier-to-reach position. There’s no reason for a spacebar to extend left beyond the edge of the 'C' or right beyond the edge of the 'M', and even that is probably .5u more than strictly necessary on each side.

Finally, the 6 key is really damn far out there.

The basic functional goals (tiny, flat, folding) seem reasonable enough, but they’ve let themselves be guided by really stupid aesthetic constraints IMO, and the result is a thing that ends up not only looking funny with all the weird inconsistent sizes, but also being functionally worse.

Kinda interesting that the modifier legends are Mac first and Windows second (except for the 'Enter' key). Not what I’d expect from Microsoft. All the legend alignment is totally mystifying to me. Doesn’t Microsoft have some graphic designers on staff?
« Last Edit: Tue, 03 March 2015, 17:47:35 by jacobolus »

Offline jacobolus

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Re: Microsoft folding keyboard announced at MWC
« Reply #6 on: Tue, 03 March 2015, 17:50:27 »
I wonder if it can fold more than the planar.. so that it could be tented.
Tenting something this precise shape isn’t great. You need to angle the two halves like 30° apart before tenting really works well, and then you’d need a somewhat tricky support system to get it to sit on a desk.

Offline Findecanor

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Re: Microsoft folding keyboard announced at MWC
« Reply #7 on: Tue, 03 March 2015, 17:51:00 »
Tab, Caps Lock and left Shift are only 0.25 wider than normal, but they look much wider because ~ is.
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Offline Oobly

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Re: Microsoft folding keyboard announced at MWC
« Reply #8 on: Wed, 04 March 2015, 03:20:07 »
...

Kinda interesting that the modifier legends are Mac first and Windows second (except for the 'Enter' key). Not what I’d expect from Microsoft....

Could it be that Microsoft are conceding that there are more iOS devices in the wild than Windows Phone? Makes sense to target the largest market with your product I guess, but I admit I also find it odd that they'd do this, they're normally so focussed on their own brand and pushing it hard.

I see a lot of flaws / irritations here (particularly the number row stagger, should be 0.25x more left), but I would find it at least usable. Still wouldn't buy one, though. I hadn't noticed all the weird layout / size issues before I posted the OP.
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Offline ander

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Re: Microsoft folding keyboard announced at MWC
« Reply #9 on: Wed, 04 March 2015, 05:17:05 »
Huh—I saw "Microsoft folding", and for a wild second there I thought Linux had moved up a notch in the OS wars.
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Offline JaccoW

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Re: Microsoft folding keyboard announced at MWC
« Reply #10 on: Wed, 04 March 2015, 05:52:57 »
Could it be that Microsoft are conceding that there are more iOS devices in the wild than Windows Phone? Makes sense to target the largest market with your product I guess, but I admit I also find it odd that they'd do this, they're normally so focussed on their own brand and pushing it hard.
Well, they did tell us they were moving to Windows as a service. A similar trend can be seen in Office and other software. It wouldn't be strange to see them do the same thing with their hardware department.
Then there is the fact that iOS is huge in the USA whereas it is a lot smaller in most of Europe and practically non-existant in the world at large where low-end Android, Windows Phone and dumbphones still rule.
I wouldn't mind using this or something similar with my phone or tabler (both Windows btw) especially at the size.
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Offline jacobolus

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