Think Outside's (www.thinkoutside.com) original Stowaway has been the undisputed master of external keyboards for HP Pocket PCs and Palm OS devices. But now that reign is being challenged by its younger sibling, the Stowaway XT (for eXtra Thin). The new keyboard has all the important features of its predecessor, but sacrifices a few minor ones to shed much of the extraneous size of the original, and some of the weight.
Think Outside's original Stowaway foldable keyboard (bottom) and the new, smaller Stowaway XT (top).
Size does matter!
The original Stowaway had a unique four-sectioned folding design. The new Stowaway XT folds in half and has an offset hinge system that takes stress away from the center joint (Screen 1). The most obvious differences between the XT and original Stowaway are the XT's smaller size, a split in the center of the space bar, the loss of the top row of dedicated number keys, and the elimination of separate quick-launch keys. Another important difference is the XT's offset hinge, which supports the open keyboard better than the overly flexible original Stowaway.
Screen 1 (above): Stowaway XT (bottom) folds in half and has an offset hinge system that supports the unfolded keyboard. The original Stowaway (top) has a larger, four-sectioned folding design.
Remarkably, the portion of the keyboard you actually type on isn't that much smaller on the XT. Think Outside reduced the size of the keys from 19 mm to 18 mm square, and the difference is almost unnoticeable. The overall size of the unit was kept small by the removal of the top row and the short cut keys, and the elimination of wasted space surrounding the keys.
Everything's still there, but in a different place sometimes
Fear not, what the XT takes with one hand, it returns with another. All the functions are still available on the XT, but they are placed on different keys. For example the numbers 0-9 are located on the top row of keys (Q, W, E, R, etc.). The quick-launch keys for Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Word, Excel, etc., are now located on the second and third rows. Think Outside also added quick-launch keys to bring up the Today screen and the Programs and Settings folders, and to open a new e-mail message. There is also a Send key to send out a completed e-mail. Think Outside also added currency symbols for the euro, the British pound, and the yen, to the third row. With the exception of the yen, all of the above keys are accessed by first pressing the blue Fn key, which is found to the left of the space bar.
The symbols normally associated with the number keys (!, @, #, $, etc.) are also found on the top row of the keyboard. The page up, page down, home, end, and yen symbol are found in the lower right portion of the keyboard. These symbols and keys are accessed by first pressing the green Fn key, which is located to the right of the space bar. Yes, doubling and tripling up on some keys and using two different Fn keys takes a little getting used to, as does the loss of a dedicated number row. Adapting to the change took me about 30 minutes. If you think you can live with these changes, the XT is a great solution. If not, you'd probably prefer the original Stowaway.
Unlike the original Stowaway, the XT has no embedded keypad. Think Outside has indicated that they will listen to customer response on this decision to see if they should add it back on future models. Personally, I've never used embedded keypads in any notebook computer. Note also that the quick-launch keys are not user-definable. You can use them for their intended purpose but cannot reprogram them to launch third-party applications. That is a feature I would like to see on the next version of the software.
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