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.

There are eight key lessons, which teach you to type with all your fingers in the correct manner. The teaching method is very dry, with no silly games on offer, like with Mavis Beacon, you simply type the letters that appear on the screen. It doesn’t count any mistakes you go back and correct, so if you’re diligent you’ll always get perfect scores; we think it should keep account of such mistakes, to better judge your progress. Once these are completed, you can switch to the speed exercises to help you to improve your words-per-minute. Complete both parts and there’s an exam – pass this and it will even give you a certificate.

With no cutesy animations, and a very dry tone, Keyboard Pro feels like a serious corporate training tool, rather than consumer software for families – and that’s because it is. Multiple user licenses for large companies can cost as little as £5, and allows managers to track employee progress and message students.

For home users, the obvious alternative is Mavis Beacon. Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Platinum 20 comes on a disk, which is yours to keep and use as you wish. However, the application runs full screen, just like a game, so you feel cut off from everything else going on, such as email alerts or chat requests. This aids concentration, but it’s not a very modern way of using your PC. It has games too, and though they are incredibly transparent ways of dressing up the same tasks, they might pique the interest of kids who want to learn to type.

Mavis’s presentation looks more dated than even its 2008 release date would suggest, with some nasty colour choices and bemusing elevator music. Mavis herself once commented: “Your success is extraordinary, you should be proud of yourself”. Georgia would never attempt such self-help guru utterances. In short, Mavis is very American, a fact that extends even to its choice of spellings.

At £35 for a single user, however, Keyboard Pro is expensive, with Mavis Beacon being available for only £18 inc VAT on www.amazon.co.uk // http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mavis-Beacon-Teaches-Typing-Platinum/dp/B001AZ7Q10/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292419972&sr=8-1. They are both more than capable of teaching you to touch type, if you have the patience to learn. The choice lies in the opposing presentation tones, and whether you prefer an online service or a full-screen application.

If pushed we’d err on the side of Mavis Beacon, if only because it’s almost half the price of Keyboard Pro, but both have their plus points. We’re still struggling to overcome a lifetime of bad habits at the keyboard, though more fingers are now in use than ever before.