Digital Trends

Apple Keyboard October 24th, 2007 | by Josh Norem

Use and Testing

To test the Apple keyboard, we put it through an incredibly intense regimen of typing. Then we took a break and typed some more. When we were finished, our fingers were bloody stumps, but we had our testing data and it showed that…this keyboard is pretty sweet.

As stated before, we went from a G15 to the Apple keyboard, which is like going from a 67” Caddy to a Mini Cooper, but we like it. The low-profile design feels more ergonomic since our palms rest flat on our desk and our fingers extend easily over the keyboard. The keys have a very small range of motion, so if you like small, flat keys like the ones on a keyboard its absolute bliss. If you like to rest your wrists on a keyboard’s wrist rest and pound away, you will not like it.

As for big negatives, if you are a PC user you will find it has a few oddities. First of all, the ALT key and the Windows key are swapped on the Apple keyboard. We got around this little quirk by downloading KeyTweak, which is a free keyboard re-mapper.

We also missed the “Print Screen” button, which is F14 on Macs, but doesn’t do anything on PCs. To get around this we had to use the on-screen keyboard that is built into Windows accessibilities functions (in Vista it’s All Programs, Accessories, Ease of Access, On-screen keyboard). This let us print the screen, but we still missed the ability to press the Alt key and capture the prominent Window.

Conclusion

The Apple keyboard is not the end-all, be-all of keyboards, but it is a sleek, ergonomic, functional keyboard that is very easy to use and performs quite well. It can’t compete with the full-featured gaming keyboards available to PC users, but it’s not meant to. It’s meant to appeal to those who crave a low-profile design with minimal extra buttons. And at just $50 USD, it’s a great keyboard for those who just want to type, whether it’s on a Mac or a PC.


Pros:

• Low-profile design
• Great feel
• Takes up very little space


Cons:

• PC users will want to remap some keys
• No Print Screen key