Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I was very excited to tryout this keyboard. I'm always looking for innovative ideas and combo type products. Here we have a keyboard with a 2 USB ports (that swivel up), full numeric keypad, some touch sensitive media controls and a dock for ipod/iphones. I was looking for a wireless keyboard but purchased this one cause of all the options. It also came with a wireless mouse with scroll wheel.
The only thing that I liked about it was the sleek styling and the media controls. These were not buttons but touch sensitive controls with blue lighting that worked well. The volume was a set of blue dots that you swipe your finger across in either direction for more or less volume. The play/pause control was an actual button to the left by the pod cradle. The rest was all downhill from there.
First, off you have to plug in a power adaptor that they say needs to be pluged in all the time (I figured this was for charging/powering the pods). I never tried the keyboard without it to see if it would work. After wanting a wireless one I was annoyed that I had to deal with yet another extra wire and make room in my already filled power strip.
Second, the opening and closing of the pod cover door was not intuitive. It took me a few tries to open and to close it right which made it to where I just wanted to always leave it open. It held my iphone just fine and everything synced fine of course.
Third, was the keyboard layout. Everything on the right side of the keyboard was crammed together. The backspace key was in the middle of keys and was the size of a normal key. I much prefer it to be the last top right key and be double wide for easy of use. This was the same with the right shift key. It was single wide and even more difficult dot find and use. The arrow keys were also crammed into the keys around the control and shift as well as all the location keys (home, del, end etc.). This alone made the keyboard useless to me.
Forth, and worst of all, was the numeric keypad. I always use this instead of the QWERTY numbers and let me tell you this was impossible to work with. For some reason the keys are not your basic keyboard keys like the rest of the keyboard (like any other keyboard).They thought it would look sleek if they made these keys all flush with each other. This makes it hard to hit the right key. Add to that the fact that they barely press down, made almost on noise and had no tactile feedback. I kept hitting the keys and not typing all the numbers. Then I figured I had to hit push them harder and that was worse. You could get no speed with them. I noticed that the keys sort of wobbled if pressed off center and that was the key, to press directly down and directly in the center. I tried for 3 days to get used to it with much typing that I had to do and was hoping to try it for a few weeks, after 3 days I cold take no more.
The real buttons on the rest of the keyboard were fair but not the best. I have a Logitech G11 gaming keyboard that I love the key action on and even a wireless IOgear (for my home theater PC) that is my favorite. I've decided to go with another IOgear. Its wireless with 30ft range (15 in real world) and forgo the fancy options and hated wires.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Lifeworks Technology iHome iConnect Media Keyboard
Lifeworks Technology iHome iConnect Media Keyboard (PC Keyboard Only) IH-K230MB
Click here for more information about Lifeworks Technology iHome iConnect Media Keyboard
No comments:
Post a Comment