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Well, they have packed a lot into my new laptop - but the lack of keyboard connector has left me with a keyboard problem. My ancient, by computer standards, keyboard has had to be put away, for now at least. No keyboard connector - just a couple of USB ports. I've survived a few months without a keyboard - making do with the laptop. I have been finding it uncomfortable though - the laptop is far too high for comfortable typing and the edges are in exactly the right place to cun into my wrists as I leave rest them.

On a trip to Milton Keynes, I had the opportunity to browse the Maplin store there. I didn't know there was one, but any serious geek has heard of Maplin - I used to by components from them by mail order back in the early 80s from their shop in South End. It's not possible to leave Maplin without buying something - so I settled on a USB keyboard, on the grounds that it was at least something I actually needed. USB keyboards seem to be a little hard to get hold off. There isn't as good a range as standard keyboard and I hadn't liked any that I'd seen so far. This time I bought the Manhattan "True-Touch"  keyboard. It's a 'compact' model - meaning it misses out some of the keys and crams the numeric pad next to the main keys, missing out the bank normally found in the middle. The keys themselves are standard size, but the layout is a little different (see picture)

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As well as the QWERTY keyboard this product comes with a "muli-media" set of keys and a 2 port built in USB hub.

I've had this keyboard for a couple of weeks  now.  It's better than the l;aptop keyboard, but I still have some problems with it.

Things I like

Nice things. Surprising - I like the multi-media area. Despite being a Mozilla user rather than Internet Explorer user, the Internet and Mail keys still worked fine. My favourite part of this area are the 'music' keys. These work fine with Media Jukebox - my preferred MP3 player and organiser. The great thing is that you can use these keys to change tracks, pause etc without having to go find the application first. This is especially important when the phone rings and you have to stop the music with a single click of a key.

I like the size of the keyboard. Missing out the arrow block in the mmiddle reduces the width of the keyboard - saving some valuable desk space. It would probably be better to miss the numeric keypad though and keep the arrow block. I don't think I've *ever* used the numeric portion of a keyboard since the advent of this AT layout.

Thngs that are 'so-so'

The 'different' layout of the keys took a few minutes to get used to - and I still get the odd miss key. The worst is the addition of a 'FN' key down next to the left Control key. This has the effect of moving the ALT key one place to the right meaning I often get the wrong one. The layout is no worse than your typical laptop layout though and a lot better than the Dell laptop layout.

The built in USE hub is a great idea - in theory - but it's at the back of the keyboard - which means if you plut the typical USB coord into one of the two sockets - you have to move the keyboard forward. It would have been muck better I thin to have these on the side.

Things I DON'T like

There are a few of these I'm afraid. Worst of all is the height of the keyboard. This was one of the the problems I had with the Dell laptop. A laptop has the excuse that it has to cram in a lot of electronics. Not sure what the excuse is for this product. I've now taken to having a rolled up tea-towel at the front of the keyboard as a wrist rest. I'm going to have to invest in one of the gell rests at some point. This will be the first keyboard I've had to do that with.

Possibly worse than that is the frequency of key bounce - basically when you hit a key once - and you get two copies of the character appear on the screen. You'll probably find a few examples in this article! In this day and age there *really* is no excuse for this. Generally bounce can be cured in either the hardware or the software sampling.

Conclusions

Would I recommend this keyboard? Well - it's not a bad keyboard, but they *really* need to fix at least the key bounce issue. Posture I found to be a pain, but that could just be me. I think though there are better keyboards out there. It is however good value for money if you want a compact USB keyboard. I paid about £25 from Maplin Electronics.