Zoom Board
from VITO Technology

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I own the Sprint Mogul, and I really like the hardware keyboard, but there are times when I desire to enter text quickly while holding the device in one hand, and the options are limited. Using the small onscreen keyboard with one hand is near to impossible, and I have tried (and failed) to use the hardware keyboard while holding the device in landscape mode - and I nearly dropped it! I've tried some other third-party onscreen keyboards, but particularly in portrait mode (the orientation in which I'd hold the device one-handed), those apps have been lacking. VITO Technology has developed a very clever solution: ZoomBoard.

ZoomBoard has a "magnifying glass" feature that pops up on the screen, indicating which key on the keyboard is being pressed. This allows users with the fattest of thumbs to use it with impressive accuracy. It's pretty slick - as you roll your finger around the keyboard, the "potential letter to be selected" is highlighted in red. Here is an animation, showing how it appears when I roll my thumb around the keyboard near the letter "e", which is what I desire to type:

I've found that any errors I make in typing are the result of me not paying attention to the highlighted letter in the "magnifying glass" window. If you pay attention to that while typing, you'll find the accuracy rate very high.

To change to a capital letter, you tap the arrow icon: . If you tap that icon twice, the keyboard will stay in ALL CAPS.

To change to numbers and special characters, you tap the character icon: . Here is a shot of that keyboard:

Aside from the typing accuracy, I also like the fact that the keyboard doesn't take up all of the screen. Spb has had a full screen keyboard for quite a few years, but I've never cared for the fact that it takes up all of the screen real estate. I prefer to see the entire paragraph that I've typed previously - it feels more intuitive.
In my search for a "portrait mode typing solution" for my Mogul, I tried the Spb keyboard in portrait mode (even had it mapped to a hardware button), but I found that I made quite a few typos with my thumb, and again, I was not pleased that my entire screen was covered. In the shot below, you can see that the keys are considerably larger than ZoomBoard's, but despite that, it is very easy to type the wrong letter when your thumb is hiding the keys from view! I found myself reaching to the upper-right corner all too frequently, to backspace my errors, and that reach is not very comfortable one-handed...

ZoomBoard Sharing the screen with what has been typed.	Spb Full Screen Keyboard Hides the screen.

Now, before I begin to sound like a ZoomBoard fanboy, I want to point out some areas of opportunity with this new release:

• Selecting the keyboard - After a soft-reset, the default onscreen keyboard is what appears. To select ZoomBoard, you need to tap the arrow beside the keyboard icon and choose ZoomBoard from the list of input options. Problem is, sometimes ZoomBoard will not appear after selecting it! I first experienced this when demonstrating the keyboard at our November Pocket PC Louisville meeting. After two soft-resets, I was able to finally demo the keyboard, but while attendees were impressed with the function of the keyboard, they still couldn't get over the fact that simply pulling it up was so sporadic. Then someone suggested, "Why not map it to a hardware button?", which brings me to my next area of opportunity:
• Hardware button mapping - As of this initial release, ZoomBoard does not appear in the list of applications/functions that can be mapped to a hardware button. I would much rather prefer to pull up the keyboard by pressing a button than having to hit that little arrow with my thumbnail! Granted, once ZoomBoard has been pulled up once, it will remain the default method of input until you soft-reset, but it would be so much nicer mapped to a button!
• Predictive Text - I found that the predictive text which comes with Windows Mobile was not appearing when I typed out words or names. Then, in one of the (rare) instances of me mis-typing, I hit the backspace key and found that the predictive text began working for that particular word! As soon as I continued on typing however, the predictive text was "hidden" again, until backspace was hit. This issue with predictive text is quite bothersome when typing in a name for a quick text message. I am used to typing just a few letters, then being able to select a recipient and move on with the body of my message. With ZoomBoard, I have to type a few letters, then hit backspace, and go from there. Not a major issue, but an inconvenience... UPDATE: VITO has corrected this issue! The other two are still outstanding, however...

Granted, some of the above mentioned issues could be related to my Mogul - perhaps they're not an issue on another device. I know it must be incredibly challenging to develop an app that will work on the wide range of Windows Mobile devices offered today.

Despite the quirks that need to be worked out, I still give this keyboard very high scores. I find that I am typing things with it much more than I thought I would! One particular bonus is on my Today screen - lately, I've been using the Live Search plugin on the Today screen a lot, and ZoomBoard has made it possible to use that search bar in portrait mode very easily. Previously, the small onscreen keyboard would pop up if I used the Live Search bar in portrait mode, so I found myself only using Live Search when I could use the hardware keyboard in landscape mode. Now I can even search for something one-handed, which is pretty cool!

I will still use my hardware keyboard for heavy-duty typing/messaging, but for those times that I want to type in portrait mode one-handed, this app does the job quite nicely. Once those minor issues are addressed, this app will be a true winner!

Try it or buy it here.

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Screenshots in this review were obtained using Pocket Controller - Professional
which was generously provided by SOTI