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July 17, 2004
Macally RFKey Wireless USB Multimedia Keyboard
Today, I finally received my Macally RFKey Wireless USB Multimedia Keyboard from AcademicSuperstore.com. I am just going to do a quick review of my experiences so far using this keyboard. First off, it was only $35 (with educational discount, but still a pretty inexpensive and a good deal). The keyboard has a nice white finish and has similarities to the looks of an Apple keyboard. The difference is that it has many additional keys that standard keyboards don’t. It is a normal full-size keyboard plus it has Multimedia Keys. In addition to the standard Function (F) keys, it has Multimedia (M) keys. These can be easily programmed to do almost anything you want. Additional play, pause, stop, record, skip forward/backward, and scan forward/backward can be handy when in iTunes. That works well as I figured out (of course there is no “record” in iTunes, so I programmed that to do a different task). For web browsing in Safari, there is a nice smooth-scrolling scroll wheel to scroll up and down web pages. There are forward and back history buttons to navigate through previous pages, etc. There is also a “home” (house) button, and a reload (refresh) button for convenience. All of the Apple functions (like volume up/down/mute and screen brightness: up/down) work just like an Apple keyboard. The only real thing so far that I don’t like about the keyboard, is that it feels plastic. The touch of the keys is similar to a cheap “PC” keyboard (which I don’t like). But I will probably/hopefully adjust to that. I also forgot to mention that there are also three other Multimedia Keys: a “WWW” key that goes into your default internet web browser, an email key that goes into your default email app (which is Apple Mail for me), and an “i” button that can do what ever you want. Anyways, my Macally RF Mouse Jr. works great with the keyboard, so I don’t have to even touch my PowerBook when it’s hooked up to my main “hub.” I would rate this keyboard a 4 out of 5 stars.
