I hope the following is OK to post here, but I've seen some discussion on this forum regarding Bluetooth keyboards and the N95, and thought people might be interested to hear about this:
Has anyone else found the special offer on iGo Stowaway Bluetooth keyboards at eXpansys UK? I haven't posted enough here yet to be allowed to post URLs, but if you go there and search for eXpansys code number 150080, you'll find they are advertising this product for GBP35.25 (presumably, not including postage/packing).
That's almost 50% off the usual price which BT Stowaways go for, at least as far as I've been able to find. The only catch is that these units are Dell-branded, but for this price, I could live with having a Dell logo on the case, so long as there were no other problems :tongue:
Has anyone else seen this offer (or even better, actually gone for it), who can comment on it?
Heres your link
http://www.expansys.com/p.aspx?i=150080
Seems to me like a good deal, but I dont care much about them so im unsure
I have some further news on this offer, as I decided to take the risk and order one of these keyboards - thankfully, the news is good 😊
Firstly, the images that eXpansys display on the info page for this item, are of the wrong model. The Dell-branded Stowaway keyboards on offer here, are not the "ordinary" (and rather cheap plastic-looking) Stowaway, but the generally superior (and more expensive) Ultra-Thin keyboard. This is partly metal-constructed and feels much more robust than the other model looks, and the keys are more or less the same size and feel as a typical laptop. There are four rows of keys instead of five (the numbers are accessible by a modifier key), but it doesn't take long to get used to this (at least, it didn't for me).
The keyboard works well with the N95, although you have to go to iGo's Web site (URL can be found elsewhere on this forum) and download the driver/application package. The N95 package is still in testing, so as suggested elsewhere, I downloaded the N73 package, which works acceptably and should suffice until the N95 one is ready.
The only annoyance so far may be due to me not using N95-specific software: I haven't found out how to map the N95's "soft keys" (the two just below the screen) to key shortcuts on the Stowaway, which means I still have to touch the phone for some functions. If anyone has worked out how to do this, I'd be very pleased to hear from them 😊
In short: if you're looking for a small Bluetooth keyboard for your N95 (or other S60/UIQ phone), don't mind a Dell badge on it, and live in the UK (not sure if eXpansys offers this item in its other European outlets), I would definitely recommend checking out this offer. You'd be getting a new Stowaway Ultra-Slim keyboard for about half the usual price - I have a feeling that before long, I'll wonder how I ever got on without mine.
Hope this helps😊
I just bought one through expansys.co.nz saved a fortune on shipping 😊
thanks much for the headsup! 😃
Thanks seki - glad it was useful! 😊
Now I only have to find out how to emulate the 'soft keys' on the N95, and my joy will be complete...
I bought this too, and am well impressed. I managed to get hold of the instruction book PDF for the keyboard, and apparently the soft-keys are already emulated in the N73 driver (I'm using that too for my N95).
I've not got my keybaord to hand to try it out (and will probably have forgotten to post if I don't do it now!), but the two soft-keys should be emulated by holding the blue Fn key and using the left and right space bars (for the left and right softkeys respectively).
Got to say that for just under �40 all in this was a bargain. Glad I took the chance on it. There were ~300 due in at one point, and expansys are showing only around 30 left at the moment.
Just ordered mine for delivery in the morning, thank for the heads up 😊
cool'n'funky said:
...the two soft-keys should be emulated by holding the blue Fn key and using the left and right space bars (for the left and right softkeys respectively).
I owe you one 😊 No idea why I didn't think of that myself...
Many thanks!
What about the green and red buttons ?
Is there a key combo ?
I really hope this is not a stupid question. I've had my N95 for a week and its a great phone but I miss the pen input from my SE910i so thought a keyboard would be useful.
I read the comments posted here about the Dell keyboard and so ordered one which arrived today. I cannot get it to work. I've downloaded the instructions etc but am not even able to pair the keyboard with the phone. It is not detected as a BT device, nothing is seen. My Mac cannot see it either. I've changed the batteries in the keyboard and opened/closed it several times. The instructions from Dell seem to imply that it switches on automatically when you open it. The little LED on the LHS near the Dell logo does not light up.
My phone works fine and can detect and pair with other BT devices.,
Your suggestions and patience is appreciated!
Had mine for a week now, I have to say its the dogs doodahs 😊 very impressed
Now that I have mr keyboard happily working I'm looking at a mouse for fun and profit! 😉
Anyone have any experience/success or otherwise they'd like to share?
Thanks to this thread, I ordered one of these and have been using it for a week... I'm quite impressed. It takes a little bit of getting used to, but I'm liking it a lot now. My only annoyance is that when I'm using putty, I can't use alt+number to switch windows in ncurses applications, it brings up the driver menu instead.
Made a quick and shoddy vid of it and stuck it on Youtube.
Probably can't post links yet but i'll try anyway:
uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mtxKN_W5kK0
(add your own http slash slash)
Anyone know of a quick way to unload the thinkoutside/iGo driver for the keyboard? It's a brilliant keyboard, but the driver is sucking the life out of my N95 unless I restart it. I can fire up the driver and use the keyboard perfectly (I'm using the N73 driver, N95 one isn't there yet - or wasn't when I checked), but can't stop it.
Upshot is that if I don't restart the phone after using the keyboard, my N95 will run flat in about 8 hours even in offline mode. I guess the driver is still loaded and it's listening for IR and/or bluetooth keystrokes even when both are turned off.
Other than that, the more I use this keyboard, the more I like it. Even to the point that I think it might well be worth the £80 asking price of the vanilla version. Would be nice to have an 'ickle mouse to go with it too.
does anyone know what the hot key is for the edit key and/or multimedia key?
Recieved my iGo keyboard from eXpansys (�44 inc postage) not had much chance to try it out yet, set it up without any problem and so far looks real good. 😊
Here's an even better offer, £17.99, ordered one awaiting delivery mymemory.co.uk
Still no N95 drivers on the igo site, so it looks like using generic till they get it sorted
hippyguyman wrote:Here's an even better offer, �17.99, ordered one awaiting delivery http://www.mymemory.co.uk/memory/iGo/Stowaway/Ultra-Slim/Bluetooth/Keyboard
Still no N95 drivers on the igo site, so it looks like using generic till they get it sorted
So is this the same keyboard as the Dell one? Would the same N73 drivers still work for this? :icon14:
As far as I am aware it will, still awaiting delivery, I will post as and when I receive it and check its operation
Has anyone got any pictures of the actual keyboard they recieved?
( http://i.expansys.com/i/b/b150080.jpg )
I am noticing a problem with the drivers now for the V20 firmware. When the phone boots up, it pops up two "system error" messages. It appears the drivers still work fine however??
Regards
I'm getting the two system error messages too!
s.
tonymy01 wrote:I am noticing a problem with the drivers now for the V20 firmware. When the phone boots up, it pops up two "system error" messages. It appears the drivers still work fine however??Regards
That's because v.20 Bluetooth is shot to ph*ck.
Same with headsets, PC's, GPS receivers.
Needs a v.20 FW revision ... more waiting. 🙄
It took me ages to find the source of those errors. I spent 3 days trying to get my phone running properly again after the upgrade (and restore of data).
Psiloc digital security or whatever it was called was causing very long boot times, and the alarm clock to not work from power off, and then this "system error" twice on bootup. I did a bunch of deletes, installs, etc and eventually tracked down both problems.
So the install (or reinstall) of these Stowaway Series 60 drivers seem to create this system error problem, the stock bluetooth keyboard driver doesn't have this problem, but then there are things I don't like about the stock driver, including not supporting most of the "blue" options on the keyboard (numlock etc). Also left softkey blue-space and right softkey green-space doesn't work with the Nokia default driver.
Regards
This is the keyboard I received, still getting used to it, but I like it, so far no issues with drivers ect, I am using the N73 driver and v20 FW
Attachments:
![1196787223-large[1].jpg](/forum/attachments/thumbs/3979_thumb.jpg)
Very nice, got one on order; thanks for the pictures.
hippyguyman wrote:Here's an even better offer, £17.99, ordered one awaiting delivery mymemory.co.uk
Still no N95 drivers on the igo site, so it looks like using generic till they get it sorted
WOW!😮 Good price! £40 on expansys and £30 on Amazon in comparison. Thats 2 more Xmas pressies sorted! 😉
![1196787223-large[1].jpg](/forum/attachments/3979_1196787223-large[1].jpg)