I recently purchased a Logitech K800 wireless illuminated keyboard. My review is on the right, entitled, “Just The Ticket”.
I have to say, this is one of the best purchases I have ever made. For less than $80 delivered, it’s incredible.
First: who wants another cable on their desktop?
A: No one.
Second: who among us isn’t fascinated by a keyboard that lights up when we need to see what we’re typing in the middle of the night?
A: not many.
Well, it doesn’t have multi-colored lighting. Big deal. It lights up when you put your dirty little hands near to it.
The white lighting is perfect for what you really need: illumination in the dark.
There are no cables. Yes, that’s right. No more cables to get in the way. Okay, you need to recharge the batteries every couple of days or so, but be real: it’s a minor inconvenience.
It comes with a USB cable to charge it every couple or few days ( I am getting 2-3 days of extensive use per charge).
It also comes with an applet to let you re-assign the alt-function keys to your liking.
The only downside is that the keys are a bit low, like a laptop, and it isn’t free.
Half a dozen keys on my old keyboard had rubbed out completely, revealing shortcomings in my touch-typing so I decided to go the laser-etched, back-illuminated route last month. I went for a Saitek K140 which has a button to switch between red and blue (pointless but cool) and a brightness dial. No batteries. Just USB power. Got it for less than £20 delivered but had to go through about 20 sites to find one. It was sold out everywhere.
I personally prefer a wire to my keyboard tbh. After using a wireless Logitech keyboard for a few years I really had enough. Reception wasn’t always stable, it regularly missed keypresses etc. I never changed the batteries in those years though, so that’s not a problem.
Thing is, you need a receiver on your desk which needs both USB and power. In other words, you now have 2 cables on your desk. For best reception I had to put said receiver about 20 cm from my keyboard, and that’s when I thought: screw this, I’d rather have an extra 20 cm of wire than living with this.
I now have a (wired) Microsoft sidewinder x6 and I’m VERY happy with it. It has red illumination (with a big dial to change brightness.), lots of additional macro keys and the option to physically place your numpad on the left side of the keyboard. Means I now have my transport controls on the left hand and my mouse on the right. There’s 3 ‘pages’ to the keyboard between which you can switch using a single button. This means I practically have 3 numpads available for any action I can think off. (it works for the entire keyboard, not just numpad, but I honestly wouldn’t know what to do with 3 entire keyboards )
Setting up macro’s is very easy in the supplied software. There are also options to disable keys, for instance if you often hit the windows key accidently you can just disable it for a certain keyboard page. (my cubase page )
Looks great, types comfortable and hasn’t failed me yet, well recommended!
I’m glad you posted this Lord Snare – i wasn’t even aware such things existed. But I could really use on of these – I often find myself trying to locate the keys when I’m browsing in the middle of the night
Same here, but my touch typing is pretty reasonable. - I’ve had my PS2 kbd for over 10 years now. I intend to see how long it will last - It only cost £5 ($7)
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