How am I using it? Well, at the moment it is currently sitting on a magazine and it's a dream to use. A major bonus with this keyboard is the fact that key presses are very definite and solid. For example, I have turned the keypad "bleep" OFF and yet I can still type fine. This entire review is going to be written in an email, then I'll post it home (I'm in the middle of a field right now).

First impressions ? Small.. Very small - not in a bad way though, it's about the size of my hand, but it's very usable. Put it this way - compared to typing with the SmartPhone keypad, it's bloody brilliant! As you can see, it's a nice blue and white colour and is delivered folder-up, so you can see how flexible it is from the word go. It's almost like a rubber glove! :)

OK,  the bits I've noticed. The Flexis keyboard uses the iPaq driver. This allows you to use nearly every aspect of the phone - yes nearly. Because the keyboard wasn't specifically designed for the phone there are a few things missing - no soft keys being one, so you have to switch back to the phone. This isn't major really. Another minor quible is the fact that you have to tell the backlight to stay on permanently. Again this isn't major.

You will also find that you have to change to "123" mode to type number - having it in "abc" mode won't do it. These issues can be rectified with a purpose-built driver for the Smartphone - as yet this doesn't exist, but one will no doubt appear soon.

There is some wicked stuff you can do with this keyboard - aside from the Copy and Paste - which is brilliant for grabbing webpage addresses and putting them in emails etc, you will also find cool shortcuts, such as FN+RIGHT - which acts like EOL / Page down. I'm convinced that somewhere is a shortcut key combo for the soft keys too. You can return to the home screen at any time with the "Menu" button, plus the special "i" button gets you to the web browser in one click. Below you should just be able to see me doing a "copy and paste" in an SMS / Email message. You can see the logo in the top-right that says, "FX100" - this is the driver sitting in the background doing its stuff.

As for that driver - it comes on CD and is installed via ActiveSync or you can copy it across yourself if you're more hardcore. :) The driver, once executed via your Smartphone, runs in the system tray - similar to programs like IA Caller ID. In this way it's always ready for you to plug and go. The driver is not App Certified, and after testing it on a Smart Amazing Phone with no special updates I can confirm that the driver works fine.

To sum up ? It's a tried and tested keyboard - excellent design, very strong and definite key presses and a tough wipe-clean surface. The keys themselves are well spaced out and ergonomic. You can see a comparison in size in the piccy below..

The size of the keyboard is amazing, plus the pouch is extremely funky, so I can see people from all walks of life using it, from rock-climbers sending a note along with some pictures, campers sending a long email home all the way to businessmen quickly making a calendar note or writing a report out whilst on the tube then emailing it to the office.

News! Check out this new BLACK version on www.orangesp.com !

Some pics on this page courtesy of www.pdamed.dk