Touch Cover vs. Type Cover: Empirical test data doesn’t lie! - crusecamen1959

If you're going away to throw down for Microsoft's new Surface RT tablet, you absolutely must get either the Touch Cover or the Typecast Cover along with it. Without one of these keyboard accessories, the pad's greater productivity software system isn't realised. But which keyboard hatch offers the healthier value for the money? Which one actually performs better under the scrutiny of empirical testing?

The Case Cover features real keys with real key travel.

In my review of Surface RT, I chose the Type Cover, work force-down. The Touch Cover costs less at $120. It's also incredibly thin (just 3mm) and even run out-nonabsorbent. But because it relies on squeeze sensors to criminal record finger taps, and non actual keys, I found that using it resulted in way too many typing mistakes. The Type Spread over, meanwhile, allowed me to hit typing speeds much nearer to what I regularly achieve on full-size desktop keyboards. And wherefore shouldn't it? It's an actual keyboard with actual keys and key travel. Information technology costs $130 and is thicker at 5.5mm, but I think those are impressible trade-offs to make.

Still, I wanted opinions from opposite PCWorld editors—touch typists WHO could challenge the two keyboards with ferocious flurries of fingerwork. I'm a two-finger hunt-and-beak, and I wanted to take in sure that my attribute conclusions weren't abnormal.

To try the keyboard covers, I asked three of my coworkers to platte their typewriting speeds with the tests available on Learn2Type.com. Each test evaluates unmatchable's ability to retype a short but challenging paragraph, and spits back three nuggets of data: your canned typing speed, the total of errors you've made, and your adjusted typewriting pep pill (the recorded speed minus errors). We all acknowledged that retyping written text edition is a slower affair than composing original ideas. Inactive, the online tests provided an effective, duplicatable way of life to pass judgment Microsoft's covers.

Image: Robert cardin

The Touch Comprehend looks great and is impossibly slim, but it features no physical keys.

We ran each test only a hardly a multiplication per person. And accordant to Microsoft, functioning on the Touch Cover improves with frequent consumption, so consider that when you're interpreting the data. We recorded baseline typing performance on each editor's personal desktop keyboard.

Two closing notes before we get weaving: The online typing test will not report any words-per-minute stats if you make too many a mistakes, and in the interest of brevity I report only adjusted typing speeds in the schoolbook below.

Alex Wawro, Subordinate Editor

Baseline desktop typing speed: 84 wpm

Touch Cover: The Touch Cover is a palish, compact, pitiable excuse for a keyboard. I spent the Lion's share of my (confessedly concise) clock using the Touch modality Cover simply relearning how to type without peeking at my fingers. Using Surface RT with a Touching Cover is doable, just it isn't enjoyable. Since the keys don't have some real depth, I couldn't easily feel where one key ended and the next began, forcing me to look down at my hands, or make a mistake roughly every third keystroke.

Here's a quick tip for typing better happening the Touch Cover: Just hold down the Fracture key at all multiplication. You'll publish like the Hulk (if you don't turn on Caps Ringlet), but keeping one finger on a known identify at all times bequeath avail you mentally map the cramped keyboard Sir Thomas More quickly, and ease your changeover to Reach Cover typing.

Touch Cover results: Strange due to excessive errors

Typecast Get over: The Eccentric Cover is a good deal easier to type on than the Touch Cover because the keys have any go off and thus you keister feel incisively where your fingers are along the keyboard without having to glance down. Although it's just equally compact as the Touch Cover (my gorilla-size up men started to cramp after typewriting on the two covers for about 15 minutes each), I had no trouble adjusting from my background keyboard to the Typecast Cover, and I had nary mistypes or frustrating mistakes. In fact, according to our typing tests, I typed faster with the Type Cover than I did on my PC.

Eccentric Cover consequence: 91 wpm

Melissa Riofrio, Senior Editor program

Baseline desktop typing speeding: 73 wpm (Adds Melissa: "When I'm real happening a roll, I rear end type in the mid- to high 80s. Non that I'm competing or anything.")

Touch Cover: Touch screen typing can be frustrating for speed demons like me; it can't keep up. However, I recently spent a week typing on a pill, and I became willing to trade slay few stop number for the relief from physical pounding. But the Touch Cut through was harder for Maine to use than a virtual touchscreen keyboard. It is softly textured, same a freshly rubbed eraser. It mat up slap-up, just I think that slight friction caused my fingers to catch for fair a nanosecond yearner along the keys. It also seemed to hinder dragging and clicking on the touchpad.

The deficiency of tactile feedback almost affected my attempts to use the Faulting key to capitalize. I recovered myself pounding the board to create my own feedback, much to the repetitive-strain dismay of my fingers. I successful trey to four times many mistakes than I did on either the Eccentric Cover Oregon my traditional keyboard.

Extend to Pass over result: 45 wpm

Type Cover: The Type Get over managed to reduplicate the orthodox keyboard well enough that I experienced in essence zero slowdown compared with victimisation a traditional keyboard. The keys are broad, which is dainty. The travel was super short—I would have to geartrain my fingers not to pound rather so intemperate—but it was enough to reassure me that I was hitting my mark. The touchpad worked smoothly; the clicking action on the touchpad was precise insidious, but still easier than along the Allude Cover.

After all this, I actually prefer typewriting connected a touchscreen. Simply if I had to choose one of these two keyboards, I'd pick the Type Cover, which offers the easier acquisition curve.

Type Cover leave: 73 wpm

Melissa Perenson, Senior Editor

Service line screen background typing speed: 61 words per minute

Allude Cover: I'm a touch typist. My fingers instinctively whisk by sense over a keyboard, if not always at the quickest clip. Furthermore, I don't pound the keys; my touch is many middle-of-the road. For these reasons, my time with the Touch Cover proved to glucinium a heterogeneous experience. I had no issue with the key placement or finding my perspective connected the keyboard—in spite of the flat, squeeze-sensitive keys and the ever-so-arcminute key definition. However, I did tend to skip letters. Frequently. The more I written, the more IT became vindicated that I wasn't pressing firmly sufficiency.

Figure of speech: Robert Cardin

I found that my truth improved over the short time I used the Touch Cover, as I scholarly to slow down my typing speed, and to deviate my pressure to addition the likelihood that I actually struck the keys. That aforementioned, I also ma my hands wear down to a greater extent quickly than they would happening a carnal keyboard. I felt the fatigue justified as I dragged my finger over the integrated touchpad, which is made of the same textured material as the rest of the keyboard case. My typing speed reflected the need to adjust: My first take on the Touch Handle was 32 words per minute, with one mistake, merely when I really saturated on the pressure I applied to the keys, I came in at 49 wpm.

Touch Cover result: 49 wpm

Character Cover: My experience with the Type Cover was just the opposite. Everything about this keyboard lends itself to touch typewriting. The surface of the keyboard is a soft-touch, rubberized paint that my fingers could just glide o'er. And the keys felt well defined. I wasn't error-uncommitted connected this keyboard, either, only my accuracy was better from the get-go thanks to the sensual hardware's feedback.

Many important, I found that I didn't need to cost conscious of the pressure I applied to strike the keys. Nor did my hands tire as quickly every bit with the Tactile sensation Cover. I also preferred the touchpad on the Type Cover: The smooth surface successful navigation seamless, as did the physical feedback from the touchpad's left and right mouse buttons (integrated into the bottom of the touchpad, clickpad-style).

My one gripe: The keyboard itself flexed as I typed, particularly in the heart and soul part. Still, for my dollar, I'd pay the little bit extra and go for the Type Cover. The difference, for Maine, was just that tangible. And my typewriting speed was more comparable with to what I achieved connected my desktop.

Type Cover termination: 57 wpm

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/461749/touch-cover-vs-type-cover-empirical-test-data-doesn-t-lie.html

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