Blog - /Personal

My old Adesso WKB-4000US keyboard is starting to show signs of age, so I decided to spring for a Logitech diNovo Edge keyboard as a replacement. The Adesso's paint or finish (I don't know what it's called, exactly) was rubbing off in a lot of places, the paint on the keys was rubbing off, and, most importantly, key responsiveness was getting abysmally bad. Keystrokes were being missed, modifier keys were occasionally not being read, and my hands hurt from having to put extra pressure on the keys. Additionally, the thing's battery slot does not hold the batteries very well — they keep wanting to position themselves incorrectly so the device doesn't work. So I didn't want to get the same model again, and this is the only good model that Adesso seems to sell.

I took a quick look at the Apple Wireless Keyboard, which came out last Thursday (or so my co-workers tell me). I didn't like the 4th modifier key on the left of the space bar, though. The Adesso had that, and it made the modifier keys unnecessarily small, compared to the Logitech's 3 modifier keys. The arrow keys also looked uncomfortably small. It also lacked a trackpad, which is a necessity for my use case. Additionally, I could not find even one review of the keyboard yet. I didn't want to make a purchase with only a tiny image as my guide to what the product was like, so I didn't spring for it.

The Logitech, on the other hand is very well-rated at Amazon, and has some interesting features. The touchpad replacement, called a "TouchDisc", looks a bit smallish, and is on the right side of the device rather than the middle, so we'll see how that turns out. Hopefully it's not like the red ThinkPad thing, because I hated that. I like that it uses Bluetooth and its security features. The charging base was another win — I like the idea of charging it at night rather than having to use batteries and keep a spare 3-4 batteries charged at all times. The touch-sensitive volume control I don't think I'll care about, but then, my new headphones don't have volume control, so who knows. Several of the reviewers of the device on Amazon claimed that it felt good to type on, which is a big concern. I didn't want to pay $162 for it, but Amazon had a $30-off mail-in rebate; $132 is a much more reasonable price. I will definitely pay attention to the warranty terms, however, after spending this much.