There's a major problem with the
Nyko Type Pad Pro, and that's the fact that it doesn't type very well... One culprit appears to be that wireless link between the USB dongle and your
Type Pad Pro, because we found the performance was greatly improved when we stood about 3-4 feet away from our Wii. Pointing at the sensor bar doesn't actually seem to have any bearing on the typing, but you can still use the pointing features as you would normally. The speed of the typing once you are more than a few feet away from your Wii drops to a crawl, slower than just pointing and clicking as you normally would. Especially taking into account the native auto-correct features (which Nyko recommends you disable while using the
Type Pad Pro), there aren't many people who couldn't point-and-click their way through a text or chat message quicker than someone using this device. Even when you take the range limitations imposed by wireless off the table, the
Type Pad Pro just doesn't feel very good. QWERTY helps seasoned typists understand where keys are located, but there are too many finger-acrobatics required to do simple things like type uppercase letters. The shift key has to be held down while you type a letter to get uppercase, and there's no equivalent to the "caps lock" key here.
We can imagine that using this with the Nyko Wand is a far better experience, since it proved very awkward, as we held the Type Pad Pro in our hands, to keep reaching up to hit the (A) button with our thumb or forefinger. There's really no incentive to own this without also having the Wand, but the issues with typing are still a factor. On the plus side, the Type Pad Pro felt good in our hands; except for the Wii-mote jutting out in the front, it was a bit like holding an Xbox 360 controller. People with smaller hands may have some thumb-stretch using this, but it seems well made from a strictly ergonomic perspective. The worst part for smaller hands would be that (A) button reach, which is eliminated completely with a Wand. There's even a handy switch to reverse the A/B button mapping, we assume to accommodate left- and right-handers. Overall performance with the Type Pad Pro as Nyko intended it to be used would likely be better than as tested, but we're not convinced that the wireless range issues would be any different.
