Keyboard

There is nothing like the feel and the sound of a good quality mechanical keyboard. A little background, I guess you would call me an old school gamer. I came from the "good ol'e days" when CRT monitors occupied half of your desk, processors were clocked in MHz, keyboards were PS/2, water cooling wasn't sold in kits, and clans were ranked on N.A.T.O. Everyone I knew had mechanical keyboards, I guess we were spoiled back then. Well, the good ol'e days are back... to an extent. New gamers are on the hunt for a good mechanical keyboard and there are a handful of manufacturers out there that are charging premium prices for the types of keyboards we threw away.

It wasn't too long ago that I found the itablet BK01 Bluetooth Thumb Keyboard while strolling through the aisles at my local Microcenter. The BK01 has served me well, but not well enough to keep me from looking for something better. Recently, an online retailer featured the ULTRA eXo Bluetooth Mini Keyboard for an incredible price of $19.99. The question now... is it worth it?

There are a number of ways users try to incorporate things they see on the discount shelf at their local computer store into their lives. I, for one, am always looking for neat products that can make things easier all the time. In my efforts to simplify my HTPC experience, I have tried endless combinations of Bluetooth Keyboards & Mice, Remotes (iMon), Software (Logitech Touchmouse, Mouse Without Borders), and various mind control techniques that failed miserably. Recently, I strolled across the itablet Bluetooth Thumb Keyboard and figured I would give it a go.

Along with the migration of the PC from the home office to the living room comes a bunch of new challenges. Some of these challenges are simple and some are not so simple; one of my greatest challenges was controlling my HTPC from across the room. I will not accept having a wired keyboard and mouse attached to my HTPC nor will I suffer from relying on line of site wireless devices. With that said, a solution proposed itself in the form of the Rocketfish RF-BTCMBO2 Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse one day while I was strolling through Best Buy.

The feel of this setup is nice, although bit odd because of the key layout, the layout of the keys are in an A shape instead of the typical key layout. Maybe it is because I'm typing this in linux with openoffice; I have a dual boot system set up and will be typing this in both linux and windows to give you an idea of how well it works with both. Granted driver/software support is limited to windows, as of this article, linux is not supported, but an email sent to them revealed they are working on linux support. Good news for us who don't like living with just the "normal".