Belkin F8U1500 IR Universal Wireless Keyboard

i bought it used, just 2 bucks and i got a great product. its easy to use and carry everywhere. it works perfectly with my dell axim x5.you can write even if its connectet to the usb data cable. i love it!

.I took the keyboard out of the box, installed a AAA battery (which is supposed to last 360 hours i.e. 45 days of steady typing), then installed the keyboard software on my Sony Clie SJ22. I got it working with the Palm-based word processor WordSmith within 10 minutes. There is no quick start document so you must install the software and manual and print it out. It is about 70 pages and covers all the function keys, installation, etc.The instructions are a little vague about initial setup. You cannot just position the keyboard anywhere but rather there is a stand that allows you to place your PDA almost vertical and then you must adjust the mirror so that your PDA can receive the signals from the IR light on the keyboard that is above the 5 key. Don't worry if the IR light bulb on the keyboard does not appear to be on. Infrared light is not visible to the naked eye.Once the unit is set up you press both of the shift keys at the same time and if and when the PDA receives a signal, it displays a small red icon at the bottom of the screen. If you don't get the red icon, reposition the mirror and/or the PDA stand. Once you see the red icon, you are ready to type. However, you can't be moving the stand or the PDA around or you can lose the connection.If you ever find you can't get the connection, make sure to go into the keyboard software and enable the keyboard. I pressed the function key combination to rotate the screen and since WordSmith does not support rotation, the unit froze and the Belkin keyboard software (on the Clie) was not enabled after the reset so I went back and enabled it and it was okay.There is no need to pound the keyboard. You can just touch the keys and they respond nicely. I use my right thumb but you can also use your left thumb for a space. I have fairly large hands but am quickly getting use to the keys. I would say I can type about 80-85 % as fast as I can with a regular keyboard. With a little practice I am sure I will be close to 100%.The keys and their placement is much the same as the standard QWERTY keyboard but of course all the keys are a little small. As with other keyboards, the F and J keys have small protrusions which allow you to find the home keys without looking.The space bar is split down the middle, which gives your two space bars.Each key is about 1/2 " by 1/2 ". The unit (unfolded) is 10 ½ by 3 ¾ and a little more than ½ inch thick. It folds in half to 5 ¼ inches long and weighs in at about a½ a pound, however, that does not bother me as It feels quite sturdy.There are 4 special shortcut keys on the right hand side which bring up the TODO the ADDRESS and APPOINTMENT Calendar and MEMOSTogether with the Function key, these keys also give you Find, Home, Calculatir, and the drop down menus from the application you are in. If there is more than one drop down menu you can use the arrow keys to navigate through them.There are also many other keys that work together with the function key and which are accessed by pressing the FN key + one other keys which do the following: DONE, DELETE, PAGE UP, PAGE DOWN, CANCEL, OFF, OK and TODAY/NEW and a few other things.The combination FN + * toggles the Clie's screen between mono mode and color.The keyboard comes with a three year warranty which is quite impressive.I also want to point out that before I purchased this unit at amazon.com, I sent a note to Belkin technical support to ask them if the Sony Clie SJ 22 was compatible with their keyboard as someone had posted a review saying it was not.Support emailed me the next day and said it was compatible, and that the person who wrote the review must have had the wrong driver.I don't think that was her problem. The stand and he mirror must be set up properly. A battery must be put in. Software must be installed on the PC and then synced to put the keyboard software on the PDA. I used the software that came on the CD Rom that came with the keyboard.There are a few drawbacks that may or may not be unique to the Sony Clie.1) The caps lock seems to go on from time to time and I am not sure whether that is because I am inadvertently touching it by accident or not.2) Every now and then a key starts repeating but if you press any key when it does this, it will stop the repeating. This may be the fault of the WordSmith program. In fact both may be, I am not sure.(Downloading and installing the latest driver did not correct these two anomalies).I give it 4 stars because of the 2 drawbacks I mentioned above. I can live with them because the only thing I need my stylus for anymore is to run a non standard Palm program.

Although Amazon did not include the Tungstens, the Belkin box I bought elsewhere does list them them as supported. They are NOT supported and will cause your Palm to spontaneously hard reset losing everything on your PDA.

This item was exactly what I needed for my PDA. It worked easily with little setup. The price was great for this item.

It never work with my pba

IT"S OK WHEN ON A TABLE WITH PREFECT ANGLE OF THE MIRROR AND PERFECT DISTANCE TO IT BUT AS SOON AS THE KEYBOARD MOVES AWAY TOO FAR TO THE RIGHT OF TO THE LEFT OR TOO FAR FROM THE PDA AND IT DOESN"T WORK ANYMORE.

I became an HP IPAQ 4150 PDA owner about two weeks ago. I had a Palm Tungsten E2 for nearly 3 years but it stopped working for some odd reason. I had purchased the Targus universal wireless keyboard to use with my Palm PDA. However, the Targus universal wireless keyboard did not work very well the HP IPAQ 4150 PDA. So, I purchased the Belkin Universal Wireless keyboard. It worked superbly! The setup is very simple and quick. I inserted the battery and held down both shift keys while I moved the keyboard around slowly so a signal could be picked up. One the signal was picked up (a pink arrow showed up on the lower right had side of my PDA) I started typing up my paper. I actually like the feel of the keyboard as well. The stand may seem a bit flimsy or weak but I really like it and like anything delicate just handle it with care. :-) Overall, this product has pretty much reached my expectations. I really hope this review helps those who are looking for a wireless keyboard at a very good price with fair to excellent quality. Not sure about the screen rotation part of the software since I do not need to use it.

I need a keyboard for my new Toshiba E830 Pocket PC, I give this Belkin a try despite the bad reviews from some Amazon customers. My pocket PC has bluetooth feature, but I choose this over a bluetooth becuase 1) the price and 2) battery life. IR keyboard are 3/5 the price of a bluetooth keyboard, and bluetooth keyboard has 1/10 the battery life of a IR keyboard. I hear a lot of complaint saying this keyboard does not work, and I can tell you it's true. Especially if you have your IR port on the side of your pocket PC with PPC 2003 operating system. It's very hard if not impossible to get the keyboard connected to your PDA's ir port. Since IR technology requires direct face to face connection. My toshiba E830(for any1 want to know what's a E830, it's just an upgraded version of e805, but it's not available in the US, btw I am from Canada) have its IR port on the side, but with Windows Mobile 2003 se, I can switch the screen to lanscape and have let the IR ports face each other directly. I am able to get the keyboard to work out of the box, but I do recommand to get the lastest Windows Mobile 2003 driver from Belkin.com. So much about the setup, let's look at the quality of the keyboard. Belkin failed in this aspect of the keyboard. You wouldn't want to type extensively on this keyboard. The keys are so cramped and small, The space bar is almost at the same level as the edge, which would stop you from pressing it at times. However, you will get used to it, and I typed this review with my new belkin keyboard. I feel it's easier to use the more I play around with it. I never try other IR keyboards, because I like the fact Belkin uses an AAA battery instead of a button battery. I personally would give this keyboard a 4 star. Just keey in mind that, if you are running PPC 2002 and 2003, with the IR port on the side, you should becareful. PPC2003Se users should be fine.