Pocketop's Pocketop Keyboard is a portable fold-up device that lets workers type data into handheld PDAs. The device works wirelessly with a wide range of Palm and Pocket PC models, but users may have to position PDA and keyboard carefully for keystrokes to get through.

The Pocketop Keyboard links via infrared to send keystrokes. Most other add-on keyboards link to the docking ports of PDAs, but these ports are proprietary, rendering the keyboards useless if users upgrade PDAs.

In tests with a Compaq iPaq, we found the Pocketop worked well, allowing us to type at a reasonable speed into Pocket Word. However, most PDAs have their infrared port on their top or side, making a line-of-sight link difficult.

The latest Pocketop drivers - available at the first Web address below - fix this by changing the display orientation. The PDA can then be rotated so that the port faces the keyboard.

We would have preferred the Pocketop Keyboard to use Bluetooth radio technology that does not rely on a line-of-sight connection. Pocketop said a future version would support Bluetooth.

Numbers are accessed by pressing the top row of letters in combination with a "num" key. One drawback is the lack of a £ key. On Pocket PCs, the £ symbol can be accessed via a pop-up character map, but we found it easier to bind the £ symbol to a hot-key combination in Pocketop's driver. Palm users can just type Alt-P.

We also found the lightweight keyboard sometimes skidded about when typing, which could lose the line-of-sight link.

The keyboard is powered by a single AAA battery, which the vendor said should last for three months. This figure is based on a worker typing 120 keystrokes per minute for two hours each day.

Price: £68 + VAT

Contact: Pocketop or
Widget UK 0800 138 1631

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