HERO Keyboard Review

Like any keyboard extension, HERO Keyboard takes a little practice to truly see the results. It doesn't require mastering complicated gestures though. Instead, it's far more intuitive than that. By placing the most-used keys in a prominent place, it should save you plenty of time.

Rather than sticking with a conventional QWERTY style look, HERO Keyboard places everything within a circle. The most commonly used letters such as T, H, E, R, O, and S are all placed in the center with less commonly used letters on the outskirts. Z, X, and Q are understandably right on the outskirts, much like signs such as @ and #. At first, you'll find your fingers instinctively going to where the keys would be placed on a QWERTY keyboard, but stick with it, and you'll find things quite intuitive.

When you think about it, the most commonly used letters are ones such as E, R, S, and N. HERO Keyboard has been intelligently planned out to accommodate that. Switching to numbers takes you to a keypad that's so much quicker than the usual way of entering numbers, working much like a calculator's layout. You can choose to drag a finger around instead of typing but I found the former slightly easier to do, easily navigating the various different choices as I texted and wrote up notes.

HERO Keyboard could do with some more features, such as the introduction of an auto-suggest bar, and extra languages, but what is there works very well. It feels more like a genuine replacement to the QWERTY way of doing things, rather than a gimmick, and it's speedy enough to keep you happy with its results. It really should save you plenty of time and finger travelling.