Keyboard Pro review

Touch-typing is a valuable skill, one that’s guaranteed to save you time and one that the whole team here hasn’t quite mastered. Learning to type from scratch is tough enough, but unlearning years of bad habits is harder still – which meant that Keyboard Pro had its work cut out for it.

This tutoring software claims to be able to teach you the basics of touch-typing in just one week – it recommends you spend 1-2 hours a day on it to achieve this. Unlike other touch-typing tutors, such as the long-running Mavis Beacon series, keyboard Pro doesn’t isn’t a boxed product that you buy and install. Instead it’s an online service, which runs in a browser, and your money gets you a 12-month subscription in which to complete the course.

We feel this is a little mean, as you might want to come back for a refresher 18 months down the line, plus you can’t share the software with family members in the future. On the plus side, you can log in to your course from any internet connected PC, so you learn across multiple PCs. Although that precludes lessons on the daily commute, it requires a lot of concentration anyway, so we can’t see many people doing it on a busy train.

Before you start learning, you can choose between a range of different keyboards, including typical Microsoft and Apple designs. You should be able to find something close enough to your own, which helps with the onscreen display. There’s around ten minutes of intro videos, with general concepts and ergonomics advice, before you’re ready to start.

The lessons are presented and accompanied by Georgia. She seems nice enough, but has a permanently worried expression. During lessons, she keeps on popping up to give gentle encouragement and remind you of the rules, which amount to little more than: never look down at your keyboard and always keep your fingers over home keys.

With no way of knowing whether you’re doing these, Georgia can only prod you with such guidance on a random basis, which we found a touch annoying. There are situations where she could intervene in a timely manner, like making a repetitive error on a single letter, or a prompt if you put Caps Lock on by mistake. But no such context-sensitive guidance is provided.