Nice Little Keyboard

I’ve been annoyed at full-size keyboards for some time. I really hate it that pretty much every keyboard comes with a numeric keypad on the right. I never use the keypad and it takes up the space where I would prefer to put my mouse.

So I did a little research and found a company (Ergonomic Resources) that sells this keyboard:

It’s a Mac-specific mini keyboard without a numeric keypad. I’ve been using it for a few months now and feel I can give a little info about it.

First, it doesn’t look quite like the picture. The volume buttons shown on the far right are actually on the far left. It has “cherry” keyswitches that emit a clickety-clack as I type, which reminds me of the old IBM Selectric typewriters (yes, I learned to type on a typewriter!). The sound is tolerable, but I think I prefer the quiet keyboards. If I were in an office with others, I would think they would get annoyed at all the noise. The keyboard feel is excellent, though. And it is really nice having the Mac-specific volume, eject and command keys.

The keyboard also has a single USB 2.0 port, which I find very useful for plugging in USB flash drives. However, I wish it was on the left instead of the right because the drive sticks out and sometimes bump my mouse.

The keyboard is a bit pricey ($90), but it seems to be very good quality and the company shipped it quickly.

I also considered the Happy Hacking Lite 2 keyboard, but I didn’t like that it was not Mac-specific and didn’t have separate function keys. It’s a little cheaper ($75), so it might still be worth looking into at some point.

For those of you that use the numeric keypad, Ergonomic Resources also sells a keyboard that has the keypad on the left instead of the right.

Be comfortable!