I had the chance to test out a new virtual keyboard, the Celluon Laserkey CL800BT. And I tested it out in my local Starbucks to the amazement of the patrons. And if it wasn’t that effective as a keyboard, it was very effective at getting the cute redhead barrista to talk to me.

What the Celluon Laserkey CL800BT is, is a virtual keyboard for your PDA. You connect it to your PDA using bluetooth, and then the tiny device puts a laser virtual keyboard onto whatever surface you’re using. You then “pretend” to type on this overlay of a keyboard while the box interprets your keystrokes and relays it to your PDA.

The installation was pretty simple, and I was able to download the drivers onto my Palm Tungsten T5. Then the device connected to my PDA using Bluetooth, and was immediately accessible to the PDA.

I particularly liked the shortcut keys to my calendar and other items on my Palm. And many of the standard keyboard shortcuts worked as well. Such as Ctr-C for copy and Ctr-V for paste. I liked that the keyboard was full-sized, but it is definitely disconcerting to not have that tactile feel of pressing on the keys. You can turn on a clicking noise to let you know that it accepted your keypress, but it’s not quite the same.

Overall, I found the keyboard to be more cool than effective. I doubt I’d want to write War and Peace on the device, but it’s definitely a good conversation starter.