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Written by Mikhail Ivanenkov
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Sunday, 01 July 2007 |
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Page 1 of 2
Thanks to Directron for the product sample.
What do you see? Aside from the hand salsa? I see remnants of blue Russian letters scribbled in Sharpie on the side of a Microsoft Elite keyboard. Why would I do this? Because I'm Russian, and writing letters/emails every once in a while is something I do. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any keyboards that had other language letters printed on them (Directron also carries Danish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Swiss varieties), until now.
Yes there are decals available but it's hard to make them fit perfectly, and using a permanent marker to write the letters in works too, but it's not a very long-lasting solution and makes the keyboard look a little tacky. As for software, WinXP (and previous Windows versions) has native support for a bunch of different regions/languages, and you can easily set the key combination to whatever you want when toggling between languages. Therefore, drivers aren't necessary, and these non-English keyboards have nothing special about them aside from printed letters of a different alphabet.
I'll try to keep this short and sweet. The box is nothing fancy; cardboard with minimal graphics and technical specs on the back. Inside is the keyboard wrapped in a plastic bag along with a sheet with specifications (again) and some FCC guidelines. At first sight there doesn't appear to be anything particularly interesting about this keyboard. It's ugly beige and has a purple PS2 connector. That's about it. The only striking differences offhand are the printed red letters (different language, in this case Russian), the round escape button and the converging status LEDs. It's not completely lame looking though; the upper portion contains a couple Star Trek curves protruding up and out.
The color-coded purple PS2 connector (with a picture of a keyboard on it) is a nice addition for the completely computer illiterate. The gumdrop Escape button is a little concave, so even though you can depress it from the edge, it's a lot easier to do it straight on. Somewhat of a nuisance is the oversized Enter button, which (fortunately) doesn't reduce the size of the Backspace key, but does make the right Shift button a little smaller as well as relocating the Backslash button to the right of it.
This isn't really a problem, since that button is seldom used, and when I do need to find it I usually have to look down on my keyboard anyway, as it's not a key I'm bent on memorizing. To the upper right are the status LEDs, arranged in a converging manner (think sun rays) and labeled accordingly. It's not something that's useful in any technical way, but I suppose it sets the keyboard apart ever so slightly. Finally, a couple plastic studs exist on the F and J keys, allowing for blind hand positioning.
Moving around back I found nothing terribly exciting, but perhaps worth mentioning. As with any respectable keyboard, there are two flip out "kick stands" that lock into place and are used to elevate the keyboard. Seeing as how I'm used to the Microsoft Elite's natural rise and wrist rest, this is something I have to have on most keyboards. There are also two rubber feet on either side of the keyboard used to prevent it from moving around. These work to a degree, though for some reason the right one shifts slightly easier than the left.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 13 July 2007 )
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