I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to talk about something like this in a blog post as it involves using said product perfectly as I use it. In a way it's like a real-time first impression whilst using it.
Ever since I moved house 4 years ago to this year and having a desk again I found myself feeling really lost finding the ideal keyboard. I previously used multimedia style keyboards with their integrated trackpads which were fine for distance use but they were never great for typing. I found myself making so many mistakes on them.
Then oddly enough when we arrived here I found randomly in the loft (attic) a fully wired USB keyboard boxed from around the late 90's/early 2000's. It had such an odd design though, one of those where the keyboard looks like it splits in half and gives it's shape such a bulk and takes up half of the desk space, it was horrid.
Eventually I ended up getting generic keyboards for free from places such as Freecycle. Again, these were ok, but never quite there. My wife eventually managed to bag some decent ones from her work in the form of some slimline Dell keyboards.
Within the last few years 8BitDo started doing their own "retro style" keyboards based on certain game consoles and computers. Initially they were selling 87 key versions (no numpad basically) and you had to get the numpad separately but annoyingly it meant the wireless connections still had separate connections to use them. So now they've released full 108 key versions as you would get as a full sized keyboard with numpad which I decided to get. I never realised they were planning to do versions like these as I liked what they were doing but was in no rush or no intention of getting one anytime soon. But as soon as I saw the full versions getting a release it immediately enticed me to get it.
The other appeal was that I had 3 different ways to connect - Bluetooth, 2.4G via USB dongle or wired. The idea of having variety was appealing, especially if there is a situation where I need to switch over or make use of different connections rather than a KVM switch of sorts.
Suffice to say I've been happy, the only downers I would say is that it's expensive, I also have no use over their external A and B buttons but it's a nice feature for macros or any other oddities so I can't really faulter that when it's optional. I do also like the clicky "old skool" style keys but I'm starting to feel concious when trying to type with the keyboard at night due to the sound. It's also US style but again I have no issue over this as I'm used to the layout and most recent OS's seem to make it easier to switch between regions anyway. In my case I haven't bothered to change to US style as I'm so used to the UK style. It's also a bulky keyboard but durable and suits the desk nicely.
Ideally I plan to buy their retro keycaps and I want to change to their quieter keys, or at least mainly to change the letter keys rather than any other the others.
Other than this I'm very happy with it, I do miss the flat Dell style keyboard at times but at the same time I can always alternate if I want something different. I know that this is something that is great quality to have.
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