I do alot of chatting back and fourth through texting on the PS3, whether its silly banter or setting up matches or just plain chatting. Anyone who as ever typed out a message using the PS3 controller knows that typing a message can be tedious. But the word assist column on the side greatly improves the construction of sentences. But in the end, I became pretty proficient with typing on the PS3. But long winded paragraphs were still a chore.
Recently my wife on a trip, remembering me complaining taking so long to type out messages. Picked me up the wireless keypad attachment. This is a little keyboard that snaps on to the top of your controller. At first I thought it would be uncomfortable, be in the way of my trigger buttons and such. But after attaching it to the controller and playing, I don't even know that its there. There no noticeable extra weight in the controller or things feeling off balance. It feels comfortable.
Using the keypad itself, like using the controller takes some getting use too. I'm not a texter person, when it comes to phones or handheld devices. So I am a little slower with the typing, but even my slower typing is still faster than using the controller to type. So it pays off.
What I do miss is the word assist. Using the controller, the PS3 gives you words that you may be trying to spell on the side, then you just select those. But when you use the keypad, the word assist turns off. Why? I don't know..I don't know if its a option on the controller that I have to turn off, or on. But I guess they think, since you are typing faster you don't need word assist. I still have more poking around with it to figure it out completely.
But it is very easy to use the controller, it works well and responds to button presses quickly. You can even turn the keypad into a touch pad. So one can actually play a first person shooter using the touchpad portion of the keypad. Its not meant to be used this way, but if one wanted to challenge themselves, they could do this. Its a nice feature, but it doesn't work. But hey, we didn't buy a touch pad here, we got a keypad for typing. I think I will stick to my controller for shooting people.
It runs on its own power, you just plug it in to recharge it like the controller and its a luxury addition to typing. Overall I would say that unless you are a avid typer on the PS3 and got some money to throw around, then by all means, pick it up.
5 comments:
tried to tweet this page but the button didn't work. Anyway, thanks for the review. I was trying to decide whether or not I needed one of these, I think I will go ahead and pick a couple up
Yer welcome sir, sorry the tweet button didn't work. I think thats a blogger site thing. I don't have any control over how that stuff works, sry.
I'm enjoying my keypad, its good item for sure.
I was going to pick one of these up today but decided it was too expensive for just typing quicker.
It's even more tedious typing with the Wii Remote though!
Yeah, they are a little on the pricey side, 20-30 bucks I think is the sweet spot for one these.
Your computer already has enough tangled cords coming out of it. You can get rid of a lot of them by unplugging your keyboard and mouse and going wireless.
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