Posts Tagged ‘Gmail’

Google’s Gmail has had, for a number of years, keyboard shortcuts to help you navigate around your e-mail.  But, for many Gmail users these shortcuts were often non intuitive and diffucult to learn. Recently, Google e-mail service has introduced the Gboard that will aleviate this problems for it’s thousands of members. The Gboard is now on the market and can be purchased for the reasonable price of $19.99.

The Gboard is the size of a standard numberpad keyboard and features 19 brightly colored keys. These keys all allow you to utilize shortcuts dealing with your Gmail. Gmail-specific features include starring messages, starting a search, and jumping between message threads. When the Gboard is not used with Gmail, the buttons will simply act like normal keyboard buttons and type whatever letter or number that corresponds with the shortcut.

Conveniently, the Gboard is powered through a USB port. This means that you will not need any special software or driver. You will have to enable keyboard shortcuts under Gmail’s settings before fully utilising your Gboard, but that isn’t any difficult task.

The Gboard has been described a bit like Marmite, people are either going to love or hate the Gboard. If people have already mastered all the shortcuts that are utilised with Gmail, then I would recommend they save themselves the $20 and continue as they currently are.  For the many that have found the Gmail shortcuts difficult to master however, it could be very useful tool.

With a total of 69 shortcuts and many more to come if Google releases some of their experimental features that are currently being tested in the labs, the Gboard could be the first step to developing a full-sized version with more than 100 keys. For now though, the Gboard should satisfy Gmail users who have had issues with figuring out the shortcuts, and the low price tag just can’t be beat.