If you type with two or fewer fingers -- the slow, stilted, pause-heavy “hunt and peck” method -- maybe standard QWERTY keyboards just aren’t your style. The Fast Finger Keyboard lets you toggle between an alphabetical layout, with the A first and the Z last, and the standard arrangement some (apparently) find so befuddling.

That works fine, but the keyboard has nearly as many quirks as keys. Its lack of a USB port for our mouse is a huge oversight--using up both our MacBook Pro’s USB ports on nothing more than a keyboard and mouse is a deal breaker, straight up. The function keys double as instant-message-speak shortcuts, giving you one-key access to LOL, BRB, CYA, FYI, ASAP, and so on, but we wish we could reprogram those to our personal favorites (like OMG and !!!one!1!11!!, which always cracks us up). You can also type WWW. with one button-press -- but why’s it in all caps? -- and make an @ sign without using Shift. The volume-adjust keys worked in Leopard, but the Scroll Lock and Pause Break keys also turned the volume down and up, respectively -- now that’s bizarre.

Look, Ma, two fingers!

There’s no Command key. That function is filled by a key with the Windows symbol on it (boo!). But it’s between Control and Option/Alt, which messed up our muscle memory when reaching for hotkey combos. A trip to System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard > Modifier Keys to swap the Command and Option key order can re-map the keys to the right order, but with plenty of proper Mac keyboards around, we’re not sure that it’s worth the bother for most Mac users. Finally, while the nonletter keys are marked in white, the letter keys are labeled white in their alphabetical layout and red in the QWERTY layout, so every once in a while, we’d glance down at our hands and it would look for a moment like we’re typing the wrong letters. We adjusted to all of this eventually -- again, it’s just weird. And we’re still left wondering how an alphabetical layout could be any faster -- even for the most die-hard hunt-and-peck typists among us.