2. Custom Keyboard Controls

Many users still aren’t comfortable with a pen and OQO keeps the price down by only including one if you specifically order the tablet version of Windows. Most users will thus drive the e2 from the keyboard. This is very well designed, with an almost-standard QWERTY layout and left-and-right mouse buttons on the left. The comfortably rounded trackpoint takes up the right end of the keyboard, with a numeric keypad (laid out in phone rather than in PC order). The keys are small for a notebook but larger than those on a phone keypad, with enough travel to be comfortable and good spacing between them.

But the layout isn’t completely standard and this takes a little getting used to. It’s easy to hit Tab rather than the A key; the comma and period fall either side of the up arrow; and with the number keys off to the right, symbols and punctuation are functions on the alphabetic keys instead. The QWERTY line has almost all the keys you’d expect on the numeric keys, except as a European model the British pound sign replaces the # pound key.

The e2 fits in almost everything form a full QWERTY keyboard and mouse, just not always in the usual places.

The full complement of Esc, Tab, Shift, Ctrl, Alt, Back Space and enter are in the logical places. It’s also very convenient that they’re “sticky” - press twice and they stay on so you don’t have to fumble for key combinations. It’s disappointing that a PC that only comes with Windows doesn’t have a Windows key though, which cuts out a range of keyboard shortcuts that would save a lot of “mousing” around. (You can’t buy an e2 with Linux but OQO tells us they’ve tested this unit with Red Hat and Ubuntu distributions).

Placing the punctuation keys is one of the big challenges for ultraportable devices and this is one of the most successful layouts we’ve seen. You can type properly on the keyboard if you can touch type with your thumbs (much of this review was written on the e2). It’s a lot wider than a smartphone keyboard, so your thumbs have to move farther than they would on a BlackBerry. It’s certainly slower than typing on a notebook PC, but you don’t have to sit down at a desk to use it either. The weight is well balanced so you can hold the e2 comfortably with the keyboard open or closed.

The active digitizer also means you get the full benefit of the high quality color screen, which delivers crisp, clear text and bright, saturated colors in images. The standard 800 by 480 resolution is great for browsing Webpages and looking at photos or streaming video from a Slingbox. But you can push the resolution up to 1200 by 720 and use Vista’s high dpi support for more legible fonts. You can also zoom in and out with the dedicated zoom keys and you get legibility and a huge desktop area, which stops you from getting the feeling of looking at a PC through the bottom of a cereal box.