grimjack2's Full Review: Microsoft Office (E17-00036) Keyboard
The most impressive thing to me about this keyboard is that it isn’t just another Microsoft marketing tool. I mean, it would be really easy for Microsoft to have added a number of buttons that only operate Microsoft products, but instead they made the keyboard work just fine with Netscape or Word Perfect. I’m not saying this will work with Linux, but this is definitely a very high quality keyboard, although it also has some big flaws.
The first thing I noticed about this keyboard is that it is BIG! It is almost too big to fit on most desks. This is even without having that very ‘unnatural’ separation between the middle of the keyboard like their ‘natural’ keyboards do. (If they did that this keyboard would be at least another 1.5 inches wider.) And they even rotate the Home/End/PgUp keys to take up less horizontal room, although I hate keyboards that are like this. Still this keyboard is 20 inches across and 10 inches deep!
To a fast typist like myself, the feel of the keyboard is often the deciding factor more than any special buttons or add-ons. Surprisingly, the keys feel pretty good. Not perfect, not even great, but pretty good. The keys feel sort of ‘high’ and take a little more force to press down than Logitech’s competing Internet keyboard. Unfortunately, the keyboard itself is noticeably mushier than I like. There isn’t the sharp click that I prefer to feel when I type.
It is hard for me not to compare this to the Logitech advanced keyboards, since I tested both of these out at the same time. The extra buttons on the Microsoft ones are fortunately smaller than the Logitech’s. Those buttons are much larger, and spaced further apart, but the keyboard still takes up less room.
On the far left of the keyboard is a very wide wheel. Why it is so wide I’m not sure, but with the button layout, they do have the room for it. Above the wheel are a forward and back button. These don’t appear to do anything in Word, but in Explorer they do the obvious. Below the wheel are three buttons for Cut, Copy & Paste. These work fine, and are nice for people who don’t like to use the Control key equivalents. Below the wheel is a long button that can be pressed from either side. The instructions call it “name application”, and it took me a little while to figure out exactly what it did. It lets you cycle through the open programs, as if you pressed Alt-Tab, but without the visual reference.
One complaint I definitely had with the buttons for cut, copy & paste is their appearance. These are nice keys to have, but since they are the same size and shape, I imagine you would have to look down and read the barely perceptible dark gray text on the light gray backing to know which is which.
In an office I worked at that switched from Macintoshes to Windows machines, one of their biggest complaints was with the Windows keyboards. In all fairness, since Mac controlled their keyboard market, there were only two models, and they were both excellent keyboards. However, they were pricey with the deluxe one costing $179!! This was when the windows machine keyboards were only about $30 for the standard ones, and maybe $50 for the advanced ones. However, the biggest complaint with the keyboard was the lack of an “=” key on the numeric keypad. The Macs had it where the “Num Lock” key is on the Window’s keyboards, and it made a lot of sense. If you use Excel a lot, having this key near the keypad makes a big difference.
The Office keyboard gives an extra four keys above the numeric keypad which are an “=”, both parentheses, and a backspace key. The Prt Scr/ Scroll lock/ Pause /Break keys seem to have been replaced by these, and the commands are now accessed by using this special function toggle first. Above the 7, the Num Lock key if not enabled, has a default value of the Tab key. This is also extremely helpful for Excel users. Keys for Undo and Redo are placed directly over this group of keys, and I’m sure this is really nice for beginners.
I don’t know why Microsoft felt the need to rotate the Home/End/Delete keys around. They do this on their narrower keyboards, and I’ve always hated it. I like the end key where it normally is found. An interesting design choice was to remove the Insert key from this group entirely, and replace it with an elongated Delete key. This is also handy for Excel users. I believe this was because the insert key is seldom used, and often causes problems when hit by mistake, which happens often because it sits so close to the enter key.
Along the top portion of the keyboard is a row of programmable buttons. They are all labeled, but can be changed to whatever you’d like. The defaults are actually fairly helpful. “Files” starts explorer, “Calculator” starts the Window’s Calculator. “Mail” & “Calendar” both bring up Outlook.
Not all the buttons are as useful. Having buttons available to Save and Print are probably very nice, but I don’t think the Reply, Fwd, and Send are exactly necessary. The same goes with the buttons for Office Home Page and Task Pane.
Here is the unbelievable part of the keyboard to me. Unlike the Logitech keyboards, you can program all of the extra buttons to run almost any program, or emulate almost any keyboard command. Some game players will really appreciate this, and maybe some people who rely on a lot of macros. Too bad there isn’t a printable editable template you can lay over the keys to identify your major changes.
Another nice little touch is that underneath the U, I, B & A keys are the words Underline, Italics, Bold & All, which is also good if you are trying to wean yourself off of the buttons and onto the keyboard commands. The Logitech keyboard does this too, and has another ten labels that this keyboard does not.
It sounds odd, but this keyboard actually needs software to be installed before you use it. I thought about just plugging it in to see what happens, but they actually tape off the USB connector with a warning sticker to not do that.
I was far more annoyed with the fact that it demands to be registered. This in itself didn’t bother me, but the fact that you first have to register with passport, is a big deal, and that bothers me.
I actually never got it working through the USB connection, but that could be that computer’s particular problem. I had lots of problems installing it at first because of the difficulty of installing a USB keyboard on a machine that already has a PS-2 keyboard, and whose BIOS thinks no keyboard is present when there is only a USB one installed. I finally had to give in and use the USB to PS2 converter on the end of the cord.
The mute button and volume buttons bring up a little horizontal display in the lower right of the screen. This is purely software controlled, and some people may not like a little program always running in the background waiting for the user to want to adjust the volume. Personally I like the convenience of having the volume controls right there in a business environment. However, visually speaking, I much prefer the Logitech keyboard’s successful impression of a Sony TV’s Volume bar across the whole bottom of the screen.
The instructions are on CD-rom only, which I always hate, and spend far too much time talking about keyboard safety issues, like how to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome.
My biggest objection to the keyboard has still got to be the extra large size. I don’t think they need the wrist support to be so large, or at least could have made it removable like Logitech does. There is also an unnatural curve along the top edge of the buttons which makes the keyboard at least 1” deeper than it needs to be. I can’t even bring one of these keyboards home to use because of the shallowness of my desk.
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