Lenovo is preparing a very interesting accessory for tablets, a removable handgrip keyboard, that can be attached to slates. As you can see we have a patent sketch here, in case you’re wondering what that’s like. I’m not sure such an accessory will catch on, but let’s follow their point in this.
Most of us are already used to virtual keyboards, but there’s still that time when you have a big email to write or big paper and you want to rely on physical keys. Lenovo’s patent application addresses that and delivers a set of hand grips that get clamped onto a tablet and add a physical keyboard to it. Thus, you’ll be able to enter text when holding the slate in your hands. I thought that Apple already solved that through that split virtual keyboard, but maybe there’s an alternative.
The grips here are adjustable so you can clamp them onto sides or the bottom of the tablet, as you please. You can also type with both hands while holding the tablet with two hands, thanks to the fact that the QWERTY keyboard layout is split in half. There’s also the option to detach the clamps from the tablet, lay them flat on a table and use them like a Bluetooth keyboard, but that defeats the purpose of the entire gizmo, right?
