Review Date: 1st August 2003 Reviewed By: Clinton "SileNceR" Warburton Product: Ortek Eagletouch MCK-90 Mini Silver USB Keyboard with USB Hub Rating: 93% Manufacturer: Ortek Supplier: N/A Printable Version: Acrobat PDF (320KB)

How It Performs

As I said in the last section, I personally experienced discomfort typing in such a small area. The discomfort may also have something to do with the flat layout of the keyboard (you may have noticed, normal keyboards have a tiered approach to key layout). I've noticed several issues with use of the keyboard due to the layout of the keys, and several pro's over the laptop keyboards I've used - see below.

Pros:

• Has Windows and Right Click Index Menu keys
• Fn key is on/off, not hold-while-you-use
• Layout in general is very similar to my IBM RapidAccessKeyboard III - (placement of backspace, enter, \)
• Keys make a distinct click and have a depressed feel to them even though they don't have a great amount of travel when pushed.
• Arrow keys are a reasonable location and size

Cons:

• No indicator light for Fn key status
• No right hand side Control key - this can cause problems for people in the habit of Shift+Ctrl+arrow key text selecting techniques with one hand.
• People used to pressing Shift+Del with one hand may have issues, as the PageUp key is where I instinctively push on this keyboard for that action.
• Home & End are difficult to find while not used to the keyboard
• Left Arrow, Up Arrow, and Space cannot all be pushed at the same time, which is annoying for racing and driving games like Need For Speed, Colin Mcrae, and Grand Theft Auto.
• The function key is half-way between the normal left hand side control & windows key location, which can cause accidental activation of it.
• Some users may find themselves pressing scroll-lock instead of backspace often.

Typing on the board isn't particularly hard, but can take a while to get used to. Touch-typers will be happy, the standard extrusions announcing the presence of home keys (F and J) are present. Only having the one windows key on the board didn't bother me in the slightest, as I (and I suspect many others) only use the left-hand one anyway. Where the right hand side Control and Windows keys normally preside, the Context menu key has been shifted one key left, and Insert and Delete have been added. This makes for pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL easier for users having to login to Windows 2000 & some installs of XP, and is a must for anyone still using Windows 9x =Þ.

While the keyboard offered NUMpad functions when the Fn key was pressed, use of it was slightly dis-orienting as the keys aren't aligned with one-another vertically - it also lacks the numpad vesion of Enter (Everything else is there). Basically the manufacturers have just cut down on any doubled-up keys, which while a good idea, may take a little getting-used-to for the seasoned typist.