A while back I did the obligatory "What's on my Series 60 phone" blog entry. Obligatory for people who own Series 60 phones that is. I mentioned ProfiMail in that post because it's simply one of the best email clients available for Series 60 phones (and quite probably Pocket PCs, but I've yet to use the program on a PPC. Or use a PPC).

But the thing that makes ProfiMail a bit of a bummer to use is the fact that you have to do T9 entry (at least on my 6620). This isn't any fault of ProfiMail's of course, but rather the nature of the beast. Do you want a phone with a keyboard (9300), or something that looks vaugely normal (6620).

Since I sometimes need to do medium length emails while on the run, and since Sonic is much easier to play with a keyboard rather than the joystick, I ordered a Freedom Mini Keyboard a few weeks back and have been using it on and off since then.

The first thing you notice when you open the packaging is the size of the thing. It's really just as small as you imagined, but a bit thicker. The thickness does mean it's easy to hold and use for thumb typing. I was actually able to achieve a decent typing speed using just my thumbs.

The second thing you'll eventually notice is the documentation. Or lack of. The unit has a power button, but I'll be damned if the sliding switch is documented anywhere. There's a backlight, but that's mentioned in the PPC section, not in the Series 60 section. Which, I guess makes sense, since all Series 60 users can see in the dark. Or some such.

The drivers that come with it are... horrible? Dreadful? Evil? They seem to constantly stay running, but yet the program isn't visible in the task list. They disable T9 input, so you can't send a quick SMS on the go. They defy any attempts to uninstall them, and the only way to get rid of them is to wipe the phone and restore from a backup. My recommendation is to use the Nokia drivers instead.

The keyboard also seems to have sporadic troubles reconnecting to the phone after it's gone to sleep. I'm not sure what's causing this, but sometimes it'll reconnect just fine, and sometimes it'll have fits and you'll have to reconnect from the phone end. Either way, it's just a minor issue.

All in all, for $50 dollars the keyboard was an excellent deal. if you need one, I don't think you can go wrong ordering one.