Phantom Lapboard Wireless Lap Keyboard & Laser Mouse Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2011-05-08
·
1,690 words · ~8 min read
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right here. This is the intended usage model of this product. This is the
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Phantom lap board. I'm sitting on a couch and I have the Phantom lap board
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where it belongs on my lap. So, it is no longer a Phantom, although it does say
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Phantom on the box because it finally exists. It's finally released. I have a
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physical lapboard now. We've been talking about this product for ages, but
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here it is. So, this is a wireless laser mouse and keyboard combo with a built-in
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sort of mouse pad surface. The keyboard swivels around. It's got all these great
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features, but I think probably the best thing to do is take a quick look at the
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box here and then get it open so we can have a look at it. So, here we've got
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the package contents, which I'm sure you're fully capable of reading. On the
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back, we've got some outlines of the media functions that it has. So, it has
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13 media keys, 10 of which are like um
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FN something else keys. So, they've got the the blue text on them and then three
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dedicated media keys. Here we've got another general outline of the overall
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specs. So, remember this is well, not remember, I haven't said it yet, but the
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intended use of this keyboard is from the couch. So, they want you to be able
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to game, operate the internet, do whatever it is you do on a computer with
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your media PC from the comfort of the
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couch. So, we've had we actually had a look at the Vision Tech Candy Board
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recently, and my overall impressions of that was this is pretty cool, but if I
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were actually going to like sit on sit on the couch and browse the internet, it
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wouldn't really be suitable. So, this is
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meant to be the sort of in between having a dedicated uh keyboard device
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that is handheld and using like a regular keyboard and mouse and operating
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the mouse on the couch beside you. So, here, let's have a let's have a look at
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the laser mouse. What the cameraman was trying to do. So, we've got a glossy
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white finish on here. There's a black version as well. We've got a scroll
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wheel, two buttons, no back and forward buttons. I wouldn't have minded seeing
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that, but maybe in Rev 2. On the bottom, we've got a power on and power off
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switch, as well as a battery.
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Oh, I'm not sure how that works. Hold on. There's probably a way to do this.
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That's cleverer than I am. I bet you push this in and then slide it
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or something. Okay. Well, we'll figure out the battery later. There's a binding
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key and that's about it. You can see the laser sensors right there. So, there's
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the mouse and then the keyboard. This is the really innovative piece because the
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reality of it is you could kind of use it with any
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wireless mouse that you so desire because here I'm going to go ahead and
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move the box. They both operate with AA batteries and they estimate about a 4
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month lifetime for the batteries. Here is how it works. I actually don't know
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how it works yet, but okay, there we go.
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So, the lap board actually sits like
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this. And then if you're left-handed, you can operate the mouse on this
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surface right here. So, I'm going to go ahead and put it down the way that it's
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intended to be used. So, if I'm left-handed, it works like this. But get
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get this. Wait, there's more. There's more. Okay. So, you actually can take
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the lap board and turn it at any angle you like,
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including all the way the other way around. So, now you can hold it like
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this. So, you can type, which is actually reasonably comfortable, and the
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keys feel all right. I really like the keyboard layout on this thing. I cheated
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a little bit before I did the unboxing, but they haven't done anything stupid.
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Everyone always does something stupid on a keyboard. It's like, "This keyboard
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would be great except it's got a short backspace." Or, "This keyboard would be
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great except it has a short shift key." This keyboard is just great. It's
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compact. It has all the keys that you really need, including dedicated arrow
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keys. Yes, thank you. It's designed for internet browsing. You've got home, end,
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page up, page down, dedicated keys. So, it's got everything you need to
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comfortably browse the internet. The tactile response is reasonably good. You
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got long shift keys that are exactly where they belong. long backspace key,
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long enter key. I mean, they got everything right. I don't think I've
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seen a keyboard that's gotten everything right in terms of a standard layout. And
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I mean, that's the funny thing is standard layout. It's supposed to be standard. It's supposed to be easy.
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Anyway, here's your media keys. So, I'm not sure exactly what all of these do,
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although I can cheat a little bit and I can pull out the box and we can find
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out. So, F1 is going to launch media center. Okay, that's pretty cool. F2
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launches my music and then my photos, my videos, my TV. Uh you can play back a
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DVD with a dedicated media key. So it's all about media and games. So this laser
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mouse Phantom is saying is perfectly capable of gaming. You can see the mousing surface, the usable size of it
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is actually quite large. Like I can go all the way up and down here. I can go
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all the way side to side until my knuckle brushes the bottom of the lap board. And you can see they haven't
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cheaped out on the surface. So even though the edge, you can see the edge of
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the mousing surface is here. They've used the same material here. So, you can
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actually cheat a little bit if you want to go over a bit further. Mind you, I
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guess you'd run into that USB dongle pretty quick unless you're really kind
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of uh creative about it. So, there's the USB dongle that's also included. So,
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that's a 2.4 GHz. So, you can see it's a Phantom Model 3000. So, that's pretty
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cool. Plug that into your computer and then press uh presumably the bind key on
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the mouse. And then I don't know if there's a bind key on the keyboard. We
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haven't flipped it over yet. So, here on the bottom, oh, okay, this is neat. So,
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you've got two rubber bars all along the
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bottom of the Phantom lap board. So, that's going to keep it in place while
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you're frantically gaming or less frantically doing something else. You
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can see it's actually quite difficult to slip. You can't see that, but I'm
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telling you that it's actually quite difficult to move it around once it's
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positioned on your lap. Now, the overall feel of the keyboard is it does have a
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little bit of flex. You're not going to get around that. I mean, you they're creating a hinge device that is
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basically, you know, just using an ARM down here to support the whole keyboard.
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But as long as you're not mashing on your keyboard, you're going to be able
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to use it quite comfortably. Okay. So, you can see once I put a little bit of
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weight on it and I start typing, it doesn't actually move much even when I'm
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depressing the keys. So, it does not interfere with the typing process. Take
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my hand off. Use this. And let's have a look at the mechanism itself. So, I
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mean, that's going to sort of be a make or break point for something like this.
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So, I don't know how Oh. Oh, there we go. Oh, okay. I get it. So, this piece
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right here when you lift it up, see that
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lock in place. So, then to lower the lap board, you just pull No, push it in and
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lower it down. And then you can use the lap board without the mouse
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should you so desire. And then this I
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don't know what this piece does, but Okay, here. Let's lift it up again. So, it only has one setting, which honestly,
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I don't think that's really very bothersome, but maybe some people
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wouldn't like that. It's only got the one setting, but the fact that you've
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got this adjustability, although I'm not sure what some of these settings are
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actually for, like maybe if you wanted to sort of hold it at a bit of an angle
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like this, and then you have maybe have like kind of a longer right ARM and you
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want to hold it over here. I don't know. Mostly I can see people using it like
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this or in the left-handed configuration where they turn it around and then use
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it on the other side. But uh yeah, I
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guess I said pretty much all I want to say about it. This looks pretty cool. I
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can't wait to try it out. I'll be doing a a more full review once I find out,
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well, how's the wireless signal strength? How comfortable is it to
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actually sit on the couch and browse the internet or play some games? And uh
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overall, my impressions are quite solid. Um,
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yeah, this looks pretty cool actually.