LOL Gadgets

No comment. Just try it.

This post is going to be a little different that the others. It has been a really nice day for me in the gadget-sense of way.

You might have noticed in some posts that I am an Apple lover. And that’s true. I love Apple, I love their products and I would like to have them all one day. But I’m a PC user :(

But a few days ago, some of my friends convinced me that I should buy the Apple keyboard. I’ve heard so much good things about it, so eventually I said to myself – ah, why not. And I ordered me one wired Apple Keyboard.

Today in the morning I was awakened by a telephone call from the delivery man, saying that he is in front of my apartment and has a package for me. I quickly got out of bed and went for my new keyboard.

So – here are my impressions of it.

Pros

• The keyboard is very thin. Keys also. So all together, you have a feeling like you’re typing on a table, instead on keyboard. And what I especially like is that keys are very silent, probably more silent than on some laptops.
• No more win key. Instead – the cmd key does that function.
• Caps lock key – oh, this is just great! I’m not so sure (time will tell), but I think that there is no way of accidentally turning it on. To turn on the caps lock, you need to press it for a little (and I mean really little) time. We’re talking about quarter of a second here. So great, and so sad that Windows keyboards don’t have that same function, but you need to install additional plugins or what not to recognize accidentally turned on caps lock.
• This keyboard is made out of aluminum, so it’s pretty hard and massive. Something like typing on a laptop, but without that plastic-squeaking noise.
• Cable length. I got an extension cord for my keyboard, and now I can finally take the keyboard in my lap and write, while the old keyboard didn’t have enough cable to reach the edge of the table :(
• It has two USB ports, one on each side. These ports are here actually for you to plug in your mouse in the, or bluetooth dongle or some other USB cable, that will stay pluged in there. It’s not meant to be a place where you will plug in your memory sticks, so stop complaining about that. My MP3 player is thicker than the keyboard itself – and if Apple wanted me to plug my MP3 into the keyboard, the would make it large and thick. This is much better.

Cons

• Print screen function is gone. There is no way that you capture a screen in Windows with this keyboard. But…
  Did you know how easy it is for Mac OS users to capture a screen, active window of anything else they pick with their mouse? No? Well… let me just say that it’s years ahead of any other OS. So, this actually makes you to install a screen-grabbing application to capture a screen. It’s too bad that Windows need additional programs for that.
  But on the other hand, when you install that application, you can assign key combinations to it just like they are on a Mac OS, so – you will get more features that ordinary PrtScr key, plus – you’ll be a step closer to Mac ;)

PrintScreen, Eject and much more on Apple Keyboard with Windows

UPDATE (Jan 15, 2009): Lucikly, my friend fichek helped me out through this one. It is possible to have PrintScreen on Apple Keyboard. All you need to do is to install BootCamp on your Windows (complete instalation for now), uninstall everything except BootCamp Services and Apple Keyboard drivers and that’s it! Your PrintScreen will now be on F14 button. One more great thing is that Eject and mute and volume up/down buttons are also functionable now! And that’s not all… ;)
If you look at this screenshot here, you can clearly see that when you use those buttons, on your screen will appear that nice visual effect like on Mac OS or iPod/iPhone.

So, after installing BootCamp, it looks like that this keyboard doesn’t have anything for “con” category ;)

Conclusion

So – to end this text – In my opinion, this keyboard is worth every cent I gave. And I strongly suggest that if you also need a new keyboard – give this one a chance, it won’t dissapoint you. Know this – if PrintScreen and USB ports are ONLY reasons why you don’t want this keyboard, than you’re just a big whingner, get real.

Almost forgot – you can see some photos of my keyboard on my flickr account here.