Microsoft's Office Keyboard requires a large investment of desk space just to be set up. Does the extra feature set warrant its bulky presence?
Microsoft's Office Keyboard offers a variety of unique functions built around using Microsoft's Office suite. The core keyboard itself isn't all that different from previous models offered by Microsoft; it even looks similar. The largest single change is the addition of a scroll wheel and even more function buttons on the left hand side of the keyboard.
Keyboard or surfboard?
Let's not mince words here. The Office Keyboard is huge. You could surf on it, if you felt like destroying the chances that it would ever work again. Unlike previous Microsoft models, the Office Keyboard comes with the wristrest as a fully integrated part of the whole unit. If you don't like solid plastic wristrests, or have space issues on your current desk, forget it. It also has a significantly higher profile than almost any other keyboard we've come across -- barring some of the monstrosities that used to grace IBM machines more than a decade ago. This does have a significant ergonomic bearing, as the temptation would be to just dump it on the desk and work from it, a situation that would see users tilting their wrists upwards in an unfriendly manner. The keyboard does have the usual Microsoft ergonomic warning on the base, but few users are very likely to look there. A touch of desk rearrangement and/or seat adjustment should see you safely through this particular hurdle.
Wheely interesting
The main selling point for the Office keyboard -- and the factor that sets it apart from other keyboards is the scroll wheel and additional buttons on the left hand side. The scroll wheel is large and responsive, although again it raises an ergonomic challenge, as the temptation for users with larger hands would be to operate it with the little pinky finger, an activity that could lead to stress problems. Alongside the wheel are common Office shortcuts for cutting, pasting and moving between applications and web pages. These are a nice addition, although you'd have to train yourself to use them rather than via mouse or key combination.
While the basic key layout is standard 104 Key US at its core, the Office Keyboard has a number of new and innovative features to help justify its AU$129.95 price tag. As with most recent high end keyboards, a row of oval function keys at the top of the keyboard control various utilities at the touch of a button. The accent here is on Microsoft's Office range of products, so you'll find keys labelled for Excel and Word alongside volume controls and browser buttons. To its credit, every single extra function on the keyboard can be remapped to a different function, application or key shortcut. For some reason (we have no idea why) the Delete key is twice as large as any other key. Presumably Microsoft figures that users make a lot of mistakes.
But wait, there's more
Just when you think that no more could be crammed onto the Office Keyboard, it's also nabbed an idea common in notebook keyboards, adding a secondary layer of functionality to the normal F1-F12 function keys. Again these revolve around Office functionality, with options to save files, spellcheck and so on. This we found irritating initially -- by default the first time you plug the keyboard in, it switches the lock that makes the function keys alternate on.
Overall, the Office keyboard offers good value for money within its price range. The extra features, like any extra features on a keyboard, only make sense if you already use said features extensively, and will take some getting used to.
Microsoft Office Keyboard
Company: Microsoft
Price: AU$129.95
Distributor: Selected Resellers
Phone: 13 2058
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