If Apple’s keyboards, with their extreme thinness and laptop-style keys, resemble an underfed model, all waiflike and delicate, Microsoft’s usual offerings look like they’ve been bulking up with Iso Mass Xtreme Gainer protein powder. Their wireless keyboards tend to have an extra inch or two of plastic hanging off the bottoms or the sides, and they just look so beefy and large on a desk, even an uncluttered one.
Microsoft’s Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard 6000 reverses this trend, offering a slim, svelte design that’s still extremely comfortable to use, even for long periods. Anyone who hates the scissor-switch key action used in Apple’s current keyboards and on most laptops will appreciate the Mobile 6000’s dome-switch keys, which provide a softer touch and less clicking. They also don’t have extra space between them, as Apple’s do.
The black keys show a lot less dirt than Apple's aluminum-and-white keyboards.
The keyboard is curved, which Microsoft says encourages natural wrist posture, but oddly, it lacks a height adjustment. It connects to your Mac via Bluetooth, as does the separate number pad. We love the convenience of having a number pad when we needed it and then stowing it away in the included carrying case the rest of the time.
The number pad requires one AAA battery, the keyboard needs two, and an on/off switch on each lets you save battery life while they aren’t in use. That’s handy, because at 13.9 by 6.5 inches and just under 0.4 inches thick (the number pad is 4 by 6.3 by 0.4 inches), this keyboard is slim and compact enough to slide into a laptop bag.
The problem with the Mobile 6000 (or any Microsoft keyboard that doesn’t specify “for Mac” in the product name) is the modifier keys. The three modifier keys to the left of the space bar on a Mac keyboard are Control, Option, and Command, but on a Windows keyboard, including this one, they’re Control, Windows key, and Alt. The Windows key defaults to Command on your Mac, and the Alt defaults to Option--their positions are switched relative to where they’d be on a Mac keyboard. You can fix this by going to System Preferences > Keyboard, clicking Modifier Keys, and switching those two. We just wish we had little stickers with the Command and Option symbols to properly label those keys.
Sleek design. Portable number pad. Batteries included.
No Eject key. No light for the Caps Lock key. Command key has a Windows logo on it--can't we get a Command-symbol stick to slap on there?
GHD2010
February 09, 2010 at 7:05pm
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SpaceTrucker
February 03, 2010 at 3:14pm
Now if Microsoft only made it for Mac not just for their crappy OS with the PROPER keys on it!
