Saturday, November 17, 2007

The New Apple Wireless Keyboard

Every time I buy an Apple product I'm greeted by this really nice product that's been designed first but the engineers have put in the extra effort making sure that design works.
One gets the feeling that at Apple its not about who caused the problem and who's wrong but rather how a problem can be fixed.
Why am I all praises about apple? I just bought the new wireless keyboard from Apple. As soon as it was out of its sleek packaging I was amazed by how neat it was. Clean lines, laptop style keys.
Its not a full keyboard. Its missing the numeric pad but I think i can live with that. I've bought this to go with the new HTPC that i'm building that'll be sitting below the flat screen TV and I don't want a keyboard that's big and needs wires. I can see most ladies smile at this point, maybe that's what women want "No Wires"...
I've tried the keyboard with my iMac (new 20" core 2 duo) running Mac OS X and Windows XP. I've tried it with my windows XP PC that's hidden somewhere out of sight (i'm writing this review on that) and it works really well with all those.
Update: Just tried it with my Nokia N80 and it works really well with it as well. If i use this i'm sure my SMS are going to become LMS's... The only problem I found was that i couldn't find a 'Menu' button on the keyboard.

There is a bit of delay at times but for the most part it works flawlessly without missing out anything.
The other problem I found was that its got no indication of if its switched on or not and i'm assuming that's because they want to conserve power (the caps lock does have a LED)
I've still not been able to connect it to my phone so i guess that's next and i'll try a little more tomorrow.
Overall a sexy keyboard just like the one that comes standard with the iMac's without the numeric keypad.
Also note that the keyboard won't work if you choose to pair it without a key.

Pros:
- Worked on all computers i've tried (Windows, Mac OS X)
- Sleek and very sexy
- Works from across my room without a hitch
- Bluetooth so no software required.

Cons:
- A little slow at times
- Price: cost me Rs.2500 but that was because i bought the iMac from the same guy too otherwise the price is Rs.4500/-
- No numeric keypad.

overall score: 4.5/5