Although technology evolved to the point in which virtual reality is a thing, this doesn’t mean basic input methods are anywhere near to being obsolete. For instance, specialized applications like Easy Keys can enhance typing especially on touch-enabled devices with instant feedback in the form of text to speech.

The installation process doesn’t really keep you busy for a lot of time, but you do need to make sure that .NET Framework is also on your computer for no issues to occur. Launching it brings up a virtual keyboard with which you can interact, resize, and drag across the desktop to a suitable position. Note that it’s configured to automatically stay on top of every other window, with no option to toggle this.

The visual design is appealing, but you only benefit from the alphabetical component of the keyboard, and there’s no possibility to enable extra elements such as the numpad. There’s the possibility to quickly reach the settings panel, with options to make it run on startup, emit sound on button pressing, as well as configuring voice to speech options.

Unfortunately, input isn’t injected in other text pads, which means the application can’t be used as an alternative input method. What’s more, there’s no possibility to have text copied, not even through hotkey commands. On the other hand, you receive helpful suggestions while typing.

Last but not least, the application comes with a speech component to read text input. Right-clicking the input field triggers this, based on the configuration options you handle. It all depends on the voice options already on your computer.

To sum it up, Easy Keys comes rather as an extra input method rather than a replacement for the actual keyboard. The visual design is appealing and intuitive, but without the possibility to copy input text, overall practicality has a lot to suffer.