A Keyboard for Night Owls

Keyboards come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes and feature everything from wireless connectivity to custom “macro” keys which allow users to record repetitive actions.

One feature that made its appearance on laptops years ago is finally trickling into more desktop keyboards: backlighting. Backlit keyboards have lights installed inside, which make the letters in each individual key glow. This makes it monumentally easier to type in low/no-light conditions, if you don’t happen to know the layout on a standard QWERTY keyboard. The price of these backlit keyboards has finally broken the sub-$100 barrier, making them a suitable replacement when looking for a keyboard.

I recently had a chance to use the (wired) Logitech Illuminated Keyboard (K800) for a few days. It is available from a variety of Canadian retailers with Dell.ca being the lowest at $69.99 CAD. It comes in both wired and wireless ($112.99 CAD) versions.

The keyboard features an ultra-thin 9.3mm profile and a longer “pitch” than standard keyboards. Pitch refers to the distance that the key travels when pressed. On laptops, this is typically very shallow because it’d be too space-consuming to have high keys on a laptop. Conversely, a keyboard that has too deep a pitch makes it cumbersome to type on quickly because the keys may not spring back to rest quickly or users’ fingers may rub against the edges of adjacent keys when pressing down.

It may sound trivial, but there’s a reason why many retailers have keyboards out on display and not just in boxes. Just like a car, you should test drive a keyboard for comfort, support and ergonomics.

Onto the main selling point of the Illuminated Keyboard: the illuminated keys. The letters on the keys illuminate, making them easy to identify and type but there is a lot of light that leaks out between the keys, making it slightly too bright. Ambient light sensors adjust the overall brightness accordingly and work in conjunction with motion sensors to detect the presence of the user’s hands. This allows the backlight to operate only when needed which is a great battery saver for the wireless version (which uses two AA batteries).

After almost a week, sadly, I switched back to my trusty Logitech MX5500. While the illuminated keys were a nifty feature, I found shallowness of the keyboard difficult to rest my palms and type on, despite using the feet that raise the keyboard off the desk. The wireless version shouldn’t suffer from this due to its triangular wedge shape (but I didn’t have one to test).

What type of keyboard do you use? The “stock” one that came with your computer or did you invest in something ergonomic, with added features?