FrogPad iFrog Bluetooth Keyboard

Gadgeteer Hands On Review by Dan Carey

November 11, 2004

The FrogPad is a one-handed keypad designed to provide all the functionality of a full keyboard in a small form.  The designers intended to provide a comfortable, productive device that could be used by those with disabilities and to relieve or prevent carpal tunnel stress.  After a year of marketing the USB version, the eponymous company has just released a Bluetooth version called the iFrog.  This makes the FrogPad portable and allows it to pair with PDAs and SmartPhones in addition to PCs and Macs. 

The iFrog measures 5.60” x 3.73” x 0.66”; smaller than a paperback book and only slightly larger than my beloved iPAQ 3850. The unit weighs 6.4 ounces.

It fits easily in the pocket of my Mobile Pants, although it is not something I would want to frequently carry there because it is a bit bulky. 

The iFrog comes in a white-on-white color scheme, although the keys and the rest of the unit are not quite matching shades of white.  It has a removable cover which can slide onto the bottom for convenience.  But doing so changes the height of the keys slightly.  In my day-to-day use, I prefer to set the cover aside.  There are anti-skid rubber strips on both the keypad and the cover.  The iFrog body is made of plastic instead of ABS.  This has led some users to complain that the unit looks “cheap”.  I disagree.  I think the smooth plastic finish is classic looking and comfortable.  Overall construction is solid.  There is no bend to the unit and only some minimal creaking when the sides are squeezed.

The keys are the same size as those on a standard desktop keyboard, but shaped more like those on laptops.  The travel (the amount of up-and-down motion) feels more like that of a standard keyboard than a laptop’s.

The FrogPad comes in both left- and right-handed versions.  These are distinct models with different hardwiring, so you cannot switch from one mode to another.  I opted for the lefty because I liked the idea of mousing with my right hand and typing with my left.  Apparently, I was not alone.  Linda Marroquin, the CEO of FrogPad, says they were initially caught unprepared for the number of people who want left-hand models.  They have since instructed the manufacturer to produce a greater number of lefties, so availability should not be a problem.

The FrogPad relies on pressing combinations of keys to produce a single character output.  Specifically, those letters marked in black are activated by a regular press; those letters in green are activated by simultaneously pressing the Space key and the letter key.  The layout of the keys is based on analyses of the most common characters used in regular English text.  Thus, the letters to spell the word “the” are at the center of the board.  All the vowels are typed with the index finger.  According to the website, “unlike chording keyboards, 86% of the time you only have one key to press. You never press more than two keys at one time, similar to the shift on your current keyboard.”  Take it from me, those figures only hold for conventional text.  Typing in a programming language is a whole different proposition.

You enter numbers by pressing the Number key and then keying the number.  The number keys are laid out like a conventional number pad.  The Number key is “sticky”; it stays activated until the key is pressed again.  This makes using the FrogPad quite easy to use for spreadsheet entry.  Unfortunately, they also made the Symbol key sticky; you have to give a second press of the Symbol key to turn it off after every single symbol entry.  When programming, this is a real irritant.

In addition to numbers, letters, and symbols there are directional keys, backspace, delete, Control, Alt, and all the other things one expects on a standard keyboard.  Is anything missing?  Yes: the function keys.  Ah well, there are only so many things one can do with 20 keys.

There are lights on the bottom five keys to help you keep track of what mode you are in (Shift, Shift Lock, Number, etc.).  The Ctrl and Alt lights at the top of the unit also do that for those functions.  This is particularly helpful because the Control and Alt functions don’t turn off until you press a letter key to go with it (e.g., Ctrl-C).  So if you press Ctrl-Alt-Delete, the Control and Alt functions are still enabled.  You have to re-press each of them to disable them and resume normal typing.  Three of the four lights on the side are controlled by the host computer:  the Num Lock, Caps Lock, and Scroll Lock.    The Hand light is illumined if the <Right> or <Left> key is activated.  These are almost never useful in and of themselves.  However, the Num Lock light can be useful for indicating when the iFrog has a connection to the computer; if there is no BT connection, none of the lights on the pad will light up.

Then there is the Mac Command light.  When using this with a Windows PC, pressing some combination of keys will cause the Apple Symbol light to start flashing continuously and annoyingly.  Pressing Space-Mac Command will turn it off, although the manual does not tell you this.  And the light will still resume blinking shortly afterward.  I have taken to just covering the light up with a small piece of opaque tape.

This is the first Bluetooth device that I have owned, so I am unable to compare the ease of setup with other BT items.  I have had no trouble pairing with my desktop PC at work running Windows 2000 or my daughter’s laptop (WinXP).  While I was able initially to get a pairing with my wife’s desktop (also WinXP), I had problems subsequently.  But after reloading the BT software on the PC, everything is working okay.  So I chalk that up to a PC error rather than the iFrog.

One complaint I have is that the BT pairing button is extremely small and recessed.  You need a paper clip or PDA stylus to press it.  See the little dot in the middle?  That’s it.  I worry about eventually poking through that button and damaging the unit.  The designers should have taken that into consideration.  The on/off switch is to the left; the charging cable slot is to the right.

One reason I wanted an iFrog was so I could do data entry on my PDA.  This represented forward thinking on my part since my iPAQ doesn’t have Bluetooth.  Yet.  (“But honey, I have to get a new PDA in order to maximize the FrogPad investment.”)  FrogPad is providing a single set of device drivers via e-mail free with each purchase.  Additional drivers can be purchased separately.  Not wanting to waste my single set on my wife’s BT-enabled iPAQ (and just how did it happen that she has a more advanced PDA than me?), I have not tested this connectivity.  Results reported by other users have been (to be charitable) “mixed.”  Drivers for many devices are still being developed and debugged.

Battery life is pretty good.  After the initial charge, I used the iFrog every workday for two weeks before it ran out of juice.  Unfortunately, there is no indicator on the unit to indicate battery charge or warn of imminent power loss.  A Zip-Linq USB charger cable is included with the iFrog.  If you think you might be getting low on power and don’t mind sacrificing the freedom of mobility, you can plug the unit into either the computer or the power outlet converter.

The advertised working range is 30 feet.  My test worked at well over that distance, plus having a wall in between.  Of course, there is the question of why one would want to be typing that far away from the screen.  But it’s good to know that you can.

The FrogPad website claims “new users can reach 40 words per minute in 10 hours versus the 56 needed with QWERTY”.  My experience is that this is a large exaggeration.  I’ve been exclusively using the FrogPad at work for three weeks now.  I am only getting 20 words per minute (down from 55 wpm).  At this point, I know the key layout by heart for all the letters and symbols that I use regularly.  But I am still making frequent mistakes in my chording when I try to speed up too much:  that “L” that I want comes out as an “H” instead. (I am now very familiar with the Backspace key combination.)   By analogy, I’m at the stage of speaking a foreign language where I know the words I want to say, but still have to think about the syntax.

One important word of caution: don’t use the FrogPad at the command line level until you are comfortably familiar with it.  Within the first couple of hours of receiving the iFrog, I was using it on a Unix session.  I wanted to type in “rm *.log.”  But because the period is on the Enter key and I failed to simultaneously press the Space key, I actually entered “rm *”  and thus deleted everything in the directory.  Ouch.

Be aware that the iFrog is not a total replacement for your regular keyboard.  If you have passwords activated, you still need the other keyboard to enter the password when the machine is booted because the Bluetooth functionality will not have enabled yet.  I just keep my old keyboard propped against the desktop box for those rare occasions.

The FrogPad company maintains a forum for both technical questions and general user chatter.  Both can be helpful.

So, will I keep using the iFrog?  Definitely.  As I mentioned earlier, one of the rationales behind creating the FrogPad was to prevent carpal tunnel stress.  While I don’t have carpal tunnel syndrome, there were days when I noticed stiffness and mild pain in the muscles in my wrists.  Since using the iFrog, I have had no strain at all.  The small size and cordless freedom allow me to place the unit in a variety of places on the desk to minimize strain.  I also like that I can put the iFrog on a lap desk and work in a relaxed position.  I find that the additional comfort far outweighs the reduction in typing speed.  Plus, I am sure that the typing speed will continue to improve.  At a regular list price of $225, this was a pretty major investment for me to make in a gadget.  I want to get all I can out of it.

 

Price: $225.00

Pros: 
Bluetooth compatible
Compact and portable
Good power charge life
Good ergonomics; comfortable to use
Maximum gadgety geekiness

Cons: 
Expensive
Steep learning curve
PDA drivers are still buggy