There hasn't been much in the way of revolutionary methods of input for handheld devices.  Most methods are centered around Qwerty keyboards or simple character recognition.  Qwerty keyboards tend to be small enough that they must be used with a stylus or large enough that they take up all the screen real estate.  And character recognizers are inaccurate at best when you write the way I do.  But Prevalent Devices has developed something new.  They call it Phraze-It and it includes big thumb-typable  buttons and it still leaves plenty of screen real estate so you can see your document.

Basic Layout

The way that Phraze-It allows for big buttons and still leaves room on-screen for your document is that it breaks the letters of the alphabet down into sections, and only displays one section at a time.  The alphabet is split up using the vowels.  For example the first section of the alphabet is 'abcd' and next is 'efgh' and so on.  All of the vowels are displayed along the bottom row of the Phraze-It keyboard.  When the user taps a vowel, the second row of the keyboard displays the consonants in that section of the alphabet.  To enter a letter 'c' the user taps the 'a' key and then the 'c' key.

The numbers are also divided up into two groups starting with 0 and 5.  The rest of the keyboard is rounded out with punctuation keys, a menu key, enter key, backspace key shift key and a space bar.

Based on whether you're using Phraze-It in portrait or landscape mode, you can adjust its display to two or three rows of keys at a time.  And in case you can't remember which consonants fall after which vowels there's an optional cheat list at the top of the keyboard.

Putting Phraze-It to Work

I've attempted to use Phraze-It as my primary input method for the last week or so.  I've discovered some things that its very good at and others that it's not.  First of all the large keys make this keyboard my favorite for using with my thumbs.  Fact of the matter is I'm all thumbs and this keyboard works well typing one handed with my right thumb.  The keys visible are always changing so I feel like two-handed typing with Phraze-It is only about the same speed as one-handed.  But either way, you can leave the stylus put away.

Because of its big keys, Phraze-It is also suitable for moving environments such as trains, buses and cars.  Unlike small Qwerty keyboards or letter recognizers, text can still be entered reliably even as your bouncing down the road or rails.

However, if you're looking for a lightening fast input method you may want to look elsewhere.  Because not all the keys are visible at a time, it can take two, or even three taps in the case of capital letters, to input a single character using Phraze-It.  This is acceptable because it's these multiple taps that allows all the letters to be present and not take over the whole screen.  The user can also adjust settings so that multiple consonants can be pressed before the keyboard times out and returns to the vowels layout.  Tap and hold can also be used instead of a double tap to enter a vowel.

Other Features

Phraze-It also includes a puzzle game to assist the user in becoming more familiar with the keyboard.  Timeouts, layouts and colors are customizable.  Phraze-It supports multiple languages including English, Spanish, French, Hebrew, German, Swedish and Finnish.

Conclusion

While I wasn't won over by the input speeds I achieved with Phraze-It, I am impressed by the accuracy and comfort this keyboard allows.  It is innovative in its design and allows for mistake-free input while on the go.  The One-handed or two-handed, thumb input experience is quite good.  If you want a keyboard that's big enough to use without a stylus, but still want to see what's on your screen, Phraze-It is worth a look.

Pros: Big buttons, stylus-free input, very configurable, accurate in moving environments

Cons: may take two, or even three taps in the case of capital letters, to input some characters

Grade: B+

Phraze-It is developed by Prevalent Devices and can be purchased for $23.99 from their website.  There is also a free seven day trial so you can see if this method of input works for you.