The laptop keyboard on your desk
Written: Apr 23 '05 (Updated Apr 23 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Excellent key mechanism, very good feel, high quality
Cons: Unusual laptop like layout, only US English like key arrangements
The Bottom Line: Great if the US layout works for you.
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| imreasztar's Full Review: Cooler Master EAK-US1 Keyboard |
I originally bought this keyboard that my laptop and desktop have the same layout, so I don't waste time and energy to adapt every time I switch between them. Unfortunately, my Toshiba Portégé 2000 had a little bit different layout, so the situation became even worse, I ended up with two non standard keyboards.
Initially I was surprised that Cooler Master comes out with such a device, I rather recognize them for the excellent cooling fans for CPUs and vga cards. In fact, this is the only keyboard they make, but it is then no surprise that it's made of Aluminum, the standard material for heat sinks.
The Cooler Master Q Alloy Keyboard (EAK-US1) otherwise is a pretty good keyboard, in terms of hardware quality, one of the bests I had under my fingers. Key travel is just perfect, size of the keys is comfortable and it really gives that laptop feel that I got to like over the years. It has real "spring-equipped" mechanisms, not a fake one like many slim line Genius and Logitech models. I just loved to type on it; it had a very nice feeling. I even preferred this to our IBM X20 and Toshiba Portégé 2000, which also have very high quality keyboards.
The Q Alloy Keyboard comes with a USB plug, with no PS/2 adapters; it seems that modern USB only times had come. I plugged it into a USB 1.1 port on the motherboard (ASUS TUV4X, a Via chipset based board for Pentium III CPUs) and it worked without problems, I could enter into the BIOS and Windows XP detected it as HID keyboard device.
The keyboard has no "twist out" legs to alter the tilt, but I've found that the "factory setting" is comfortable to use. It has four rubber legs, which keep it steady in place on my table. It has a small footprint, which I love, because it just leaves enough room on the right for my mouse. The Aluminum looks cool and altogether the keyboard feels quality; it's built to last for sure.
The layout of the keyboard mimics laptop layouts. Well, the big makers, like Toshiba, IBM, HP go their way even for keyboards, so it is unlikely they will have the same layout as the Cooler Master. But other brands, like Asus and such use this almost standard laptop layout. This is basically a US English mapping +1 extra key (needed for the International English version).
The bottom row is as follows:
[Ctrl][Win][Alt][|][Space][AltGr][RightClickMenu][Ctrl][Insert][Left][Down][Right]
The top row contains the F keys and some control key:
[Esc][F1-F12][PrntScr][ScrlLock][Pause][Del]
And finally the rightmost row contains the cursor keys:
[Del]
[Home]
[PgUp]
[PgDn]
[End]
[Right]
As you can see, Insert came down to the bottom row, and Del has gone up into the corner. I really had problems to get used to the unusual placement of the Insert key at the bottom and I also disliked that the extra "International English" key went to the bottom row next to the space. This is an important key for European languages, usually it is used for an accented character. I do touch typing and I feel quite uncomfortable to have a valuable character key down there, it is pretty unusual kind of movement.
Then there is a separate NumPad on the right, with the usual three 'Lock' leds for NumLock, CapsLock and Scroll Lock. I think the numpad is a pure waste of keyboard space and keys, I rarely use it at all and I think most of the people who do serious Excel editing and require a dedicated NumPad would go for a plain standard office keyboard. Instead, I would have placed an extra set of properly laid out cursor keys, which would be a must.
As you might noticed, there is no Fn key, so if you want to use it for your laptop, no way to go for Fn functionality. My Toshiba had a pretty decent hotkey utility for starting custom applications with Fn Character key, so it is out of use with this keyboard.
Then there are no extra hotkeys either - Explorer, Volume up-down or mute -, which you can see either as a benefit or lack. I personally like that there are no extra keys, simple is better, I didn't use them anyway on my MS keyboard which had way too much hotkeys.
Unfortunately, the Q Alloy Keyboard comes only with one physical arrangement of keys (with different key captions, I have one with German write-ons): US English. The International English type, with the L shaped large Enter key, and with the extra key next to the left Shift is not available. This is such a pity, all of us touch-typists of the International English layout are out of luck. Most European languages, from French to German and including our Hungarian, are based on the physical arrangement of the International English layout. In fact, this was the reason for stopping to use this otherwise excellent keyboard, because keys were not at the place where my fingers expected them to be.
Should you buy it or not? Well, quality is excellent, this is one of the best keyboards I had in terms of key travel, design, looks and feel, and the layout will bring you to the point of decision. If you are a touch-typist, like me, and got used to the L-shaped-Enter system of the International English layout, you will have serious problems to adapt. I myself swapped it for a Fujitsu-Siemens Slim keyboard with proper Hungarian layout and captions, which is of similar style (laptop like spring mechanism), but of much lower quality. If you do not care about the layout, or you are in the US, I think you will love this keyboard. It is small, it is well built, and it calls you to come and sit down to type an e-mail. It is also an excellent companion if you are a laptop user and want to have similar key layouts for your desktop.
You can check out the Cooler Master website for more details: http://www.coolermaster.com
I have a more detailed review of the keyboard here: http://www.foxpop.co.uk/articles/laptop-and-pc/368.htm
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 40
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Epinions.com ID:
imreasztar
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Location: Budapest, Hungary
Reviews written: 28
Trusted by: 6 members
About Me:
Bio/chemical engineer who loves mobile tech
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