How often have you found yourself staring at your 10 inch tablet and wishing you could enter text by tapping away on a tiny thumb-sized keyboard like the one on your phone? Yeah, me either, but the new Tabmate Bluetooth keyboard from Technonia lets you do just that.
It sounds silly, but there are a few features that make the Tabmate interesting — including a 1.3 inch transparent OLED display built into the keyboard.
The display can show information from a music player or other apps. And if you pair the Tabmate with a phone or a tablet that can receive phone calls, you can see caller ID information for incoming calls on the keyboard’s OLED display.
Why is it transparent? I don’t really know, but it’s kind of cool.
The keyboard has a split layout, with the QWERT on the left side and the YUIOP on the right. In the center there are arrow keys and special function keys for performing actions such as answering phone calls.
The Tabmate also has a mic and headphone jack, suggesting that you may be able to use it as a sort of Bluetooth headset for your phone or tablet.
The keyboard measures 5.5″ x 2″ x 0.5″ and weighs about 2 ounces.
I haven’t seen any information about a US price or launch date, but the Tabmate passed through the FCC website this week.
I like typing on my 7″ tablet in portrait mode just fine. I think 10″ tablets are too close to being laptops.