Typing on the Microsoft Band keyboard is surprisingly good

One of the new features in the latest Microsoft Band update is a customized keyboard. And despite its diminutive size, typing on it is surprisingly good. To get to grips with it, Microsoft embedded a tutorial guiding you through everything you need to know. If you haven't got the update yet, check out our short video below to see it in action.

OK, you're not going to be typing out long emails or writing a novel using your Band. But for what it's intended, that is, quick replies to notifications, it's surprisingly good. As indicated in the tutorial, there seems to be a good contact area around each letter as you tap. And since it'll be using a prediction engine to help identify that you tapped the right letters, it's potentially going to be very accurate.

The keyboard dominates the display while you're typing then once you're done you swipe to the right to see what you've written. If you're happy, a tap of the action button completes. And that's pretty much all there is to the actual keyboard. It's still a ridiculously small display to consider typing on, but if you're going to do it, it may as well be done right. And the Microsoft Band keyboard has definitely surprised us.

With a developer SDK now in preview form, too, hopefully we'll be seeing a lot more coming to the Band in the near future.

Richard Devine is the Managing Editor at Windows Central, where he combines a deep love for the open-source community with expert-level technical coverage. Whether he’s hunting for the next big project on GitHub, fine-tuning a WSL workflow, or breaking down the latest meta in Call of Duty, Forza, and The Division 2, Richard focuses on making complex tech accessible to every kind of user. If it’s happening in the world of Windows or PC gaming, he’s probably already knee-deep in the code (or the lobbies). Follow him on X and Mastodon.