Targus Wireless IR Keyboard PA87OU

I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the box containing my Targus Wireless IR Keyboard PA87ou. This thing is small. As you can see it is about the same size as the PSP and only a little thicker. This is a full Qwerty keyboard minus the F1-12 keys. There are some special PDA function keys on the right hand side that won't be used with the PSP. It is amazing how Targus packed a keyboard together in such a small package and still made it very comfortable to use. The keyboard itself is smaller than my laptop keyboard but the keys are larger. That doesn't sound possible does it? Targus was able to make the letter keys larger by making the less important keys like brackets, curly brackets, caps lock, tabs, etc. smaller. Obviously this makes it very easy to type on (if you are used to typing on a laptop keyboard). I am very pleased with this purchase (only $24 plus shipping).

I have a few complaints: The cradle that holds the PSP/PDA seems a little flimsy. The "loops" that the PSP sits on are plastic and could be stronger. Also, the infrared arm that swivels up and down could get snapped off if you aren't careful. There isn't much that could be changed about the arm since this keyboard is supposed to be generic enough to be used on almost any PDA with an ir port. My last complaint is the one that really bothers me. I wish there were arrow keys. There is a silver oval on the bottom right corner of the keyboard which is the arrow keys' replacement. This oval is functional but a poor substitute for the real thing. Often I found myself moving the cursor up when I meant to go right. The oval takes up less room than four more keys, I get it, but at least make it square so that it is easier to use. Don't get me wrong this is not a deal breaker, I love this keyboard. I use the arrow keys quite a bit and I just wish they were better implemented. I would recommend it to any PSP homebrew user that wants an easier way to input text. Now I need to find a homebrew browser or app that supports the ir keyboard, for the web, because Sony's text input is a joke.

UPDATE:

I had heard about πkey (pikey) before but didn't know exactly what is was. Well it is the holy grail of ir keyboard support. Fanjita has developed a standalone and plugin which will allow you to use an ir keyboard in the xmb, games, browser, etc. Here is Fanjita's site (Noobz) and info on pikey. I will do a review of pikey once I have enough experience with it.