Payton H. Wilmott, Gleaner Writer

Everyone knows the gut-wrenching shock waves that hit you when your gazillion-dollar tech treasure crashes to the ground. From computer components to all-in-one mobile phones, nothing rattles the nerves like the prospect of dollar-sign bubbles floating around.

But there's one near-indestructible item that will ease those moments of anxiety - the foldable or flexible keyboard.

Where rubber meets the road

Let's get right down to the meat of the matter. Apart from the funky grid of contact wires visible through the silicon, the layout is familiar, right down to Num Lock, Caps Lock and Scroll Lock lights.

The rubbery, grey-black surface of this keyboard seemed a magnet for tiny specks and dust particles, which proved harder to brush or blow off than specks on the slicker surface of a conventional plastic keyboard.

But that didn't bother me that much because this keyboard is waterproof! So we just washed the whole thing. We also put this device through some rigorous tests - drowning it under the faucet, rinsing it clean and shaking off some water before plugging it back into the computer.

What happened? Yep, you guessed it ... this baby still works.

Built for comfort, not speed

OK, the flexible keyboard lives up to its name on the durability index, but some users who prefer a cleaner, stylistic finish may be turned off by the relative no-bells-and-whistles alternative. Surprisingly, it's not as horrible as you may think, or at least not as awful as I was expecting.

It has a predictably soft - to some extent rubbery - typing feel. The keys give concrete enough feedback instead of feeling mushy, and after a day's practice, tapping away was relatively easy.

Conclusion

Generally, I'd stick with the standard keyboard of a full- or mid-size notebook but be glad to pack the foldable keyboard alongside an Acer Aspire One laptop or any laptop of that size or capacity.

I'm proud to give the foldable keyboard four out of five stars.

Product mentioned was provided courtesy of Royale Computers and Accessories. Telephone#: 906-1067, 906-1068, 749-5579.