From the concept shots and information leaks, both Microsoft and Apple’s feature on-screen inputs for doing a lot of things, but they don’t talk about text input. Is it going to be a virtual keyboard? Probably. But that doesn’t preclude a USB port for a physical keyboard.
What would you use? Obviously, if you need to take this around town, on the train or in the car, you’d need to use the onscreen keyboard. But what about at home and at work? Which would you prefer to use? And why?
Louis
Tuesday, September 29, 2009 at 5:47 PMI guess it would depend on how easy the on screen keyboard is to use.. I’m not a fan of software keyboards on phones just because of the size and accuracy needed to hit the right keys, but on these bigger devices the keys will be bigger and easier to hit i’d imagine? Either way, i am looking forward to trying them out myself and then making my mind up =P
Roland
Friday, June 4, 2010 at 7:22 PMThe fact that we prefer a real keyboard when the situation allows it, like on our PC, should say it all.
We want physical keyboards, and only when we’re not given one we settle for an virtual one.
Virtual keyboards lack tactile feedback which makes you hit the wrong key easily, while on a physical keyboard you immediately feel when you’ve hit the wrong key. You feel when you’ve pressed them en when not. You even feel how well you hit the (center of the) keys, which helps you keep your fingers in the right places.
It’s just a part of the usability that is sacrificed for a larger screen size. On applications where screen size is important and text input is rare, that is a good thing, on all the others it’s not.
The ever lasting struggle to improve virtual keyboards, can be seen as a fact that they are far from optimal, while the physical keyboard design has been there for decades. It is adequate, it doesn’t need improvement.
If you’re going to use the tablet just for browsing the web and reading (not writing) e-mail, it suffices. You’ll rarely need text input. But when you think of the tablet PC as a Personal Computer, you’ll want to do more and you’ll want a keyboard.
Although in the situations where a tablet has an advantage over a notebook, like in you car, a keyboard is impractical. But hey, a virtual keyboard will be at least just as impractical in those situation. Imagine holding a device with one hand while typing on it with the other. Try it with you keyboard now. You do not want to write a document that way.