Tech Talk / By Martha Knight

The Touchfire case and on-screen keyboard combo needs no batteries, gets scrunched away when you aren't typing.  Photo Supplied

Touchfire is a new keyboard for iPads. It is made of silicon, fits over the iPad’s screen and retracts from the screen when you want to access the whole screen.

Touchpad also serves as a case and a support for the iPad. The idea is that you have three-dimensional keys to type on, which provide a natural feel for touch-typers. I imagine it is silent. We no longer require our keyboards to go clickety-clack like those of the early IBM PCs, convincing the boss or ourselves that we are actually working.

The Toughfire’s keys are molded into a silicon membrane. There aren’t separate keys, When you press on them they transfer the touch to the key images of the iPad’s two dimensional keyboard.

The larger iPads’ Touchfire models seem a lot like small laptops’ condensed keyboards. Smaller models will be somewhat cramped, but still will improve your typing accuracy, speed and comfort. No joy for iPad Air—no Touchfire models fit those.

Touchfire is a third-party product (from a crowd-funded startup), so the various models don’t cost a young fortune—more like $25 to $70, depending on size. The boast is that, with a handy keyboard, an iPad can do the work of a laptop, or at least some of the main tasks you might use your laptop for. You can grab your iPad and go, but keep in touch and write memos and reports or term papers or a column.

But first you have to have an iPad, right? Those cost $240 to around $500, or more. So there are some of us who don’t have iPads to put our Touchfires on. Maybe the Touchfire makers will catch on to the fact that there are other excellent tablets, some that do certain tasks much better, and at more reasonable prices.

Tiger Direct has been promoting the Proscan 9-inch Android 4.4 KitKat tablet. Cortex A9 dual core, I GHz, 512 MB storage, *GB flash storage. The specs aren’t great, but the cost is $69, shipped.

But wait, there’s more! Or should I say less? There’s a $30 rebate from Tiger!

Oh, and did I say there’s a keyboard and case? Well, there is.

There are other 9-inch and 10-inch tablets around for inside $100. Envizen’s 10.1-incher is $99.99 (okay, so it’s just barely inside), a quad core baby. The Nobis 9-inch tablet also has a keyboard. Proscan’s 7-inch tablet is $50. Those all run KitKat Android. Another KitKat is the 10.1-inch Double Power which also features as keyboard and folds into a nice case.

My reservations about Tiger Direct super deals that are After Mail In Rebate is that their rebate process is maddening, tricky, restrictive and slow.

We have been hearing for some time that notebooks sales are being submerged by tablet sales. Now some analysts are saying notebooks are making a comeback, and may even  have a better price point.

At the same time, there are signs that tablets are taking on the trappings of notebooks, or that notebooks are becoming more like tablets, with detachable keyboards.

Available only in Walmart stores, Nextbook E Fun runs Windows 8.1, and turns into a tablet when you remove the display from the keyboard.  Photo Supplied

The Nextbook 10.1-inch Windows hybrid is selling for $179. So far the only seller seems to be Walmart, and in-store only. That’s the retail behemoth’s regular price on the E Fun note-let or tab-book or whatever we can call it.

I haven’t seen other Windows systems in this form factor at this price. I have seen netbooks and Chromebooks in that range, but you can’t do much of anything in freestanding mode.

I do not like buying from Walmart because of their “corporate culture.” For those who are okay with Walmart generally, I still don’t recommend their computers and related gear, generally, partly because of service hassles. But the Nextbook E Fun may be a Walmart exclusive. There is the HP Stream 11, though.

The Stream 11 can be had for $200. It is a good looking, solid compact laptop with excellent battery life.

Stream 11 comes with Windows 8, Microsoft Office 365 (one-year of service) and 1 TB of Microsoft online storage. Stream 11 is no great shakes at multi-tasking (two or three programs open can slow it down), and its onboard flash storage is a skimpy 32 GB.

Me, my almost-notebook is my nifty little Amazon Fire HD 8.9 with its third-party, Bluetooth connected keyboard and case.

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Dragon Naturally Speaking 12 Home has been offered at about $40 at NewEgg. But after AMIR it’s free, if you get cracking and get that refund paperwork sent in.

Somewhere I saw Naturally Speaking 12 Home for about that price, no rebate, but including a nice headset. I have several similar headsets, though, most of them from past Dragon purchases.

These Dragon deals probably indicate that Naturally Speaking 13 is going to be released any day now. But this version needs little or no training, will read to you as well as take dictation and control your computer or tablet by speaking.

Yes, I said “or tablet.” Dragon now works with the microphones built into tablets and some notebooks.