While I was typing up a essay for school, I noticed I can type much better on my laptop’s keyboard than my regular desktop keyboard. I have small hands so I figure the flatter keyboard and smaller keys on my laptop are the difference. It is like night and day - with a small keyboard I can whiz along with hardly any typos, on a larger keyboard I am constantly douing tyhis kiund ogf styuff.
Do they make smaller keyboards for desktops, reasonably priced? I saw a set with a wireless keyboard and mouse that looked like a laptop keyboard, but it was $109, and I don’t need wireless and a mouse.
I could do all my work on the laptop, but I still use my desktop quite often and it would be nice to have a keyboard that fits my hands…or maybe I’m just lazy. Anyone know of any?
You might want to check out the MacAlly IceKey keyboard. Designed to replicate the feel of the keyboards on Apple laptops, it connects to a USB port on your computer and offers two USB ports, one on each side, for connecting additional peripherals such as optical mice. The keyboard is sturdily built and very responsive, leading some reviewers to comment that the IceKey is what Apple should have designed instead of the ApplePro keyboard.
Cherry make good space saver keyboards - laptop sized, low-profile keys and with a nice key action. I like them so much I’ve got two of them, one of which I’m using right now. They’re not cheap - about £50 in Britain. I’d be surprised if you can’t get them in the States - this one is a :: turns keyboard over :: ML4100 model, but it’s about 3 years old so they have probably updated it.
I can imagine the set you’re thinking of when you said that there is wireless and with a mouse. Without meaning to doubt you, are you sure you wouldn’t want to try going wireless? I went wireless when I got my computer for school three years ago and I love it, as not having to deal with even more cords is nice. So is the ability to surf and type from my bed if I want to, without having to get cords to move. I’m assuming that you’re thinking of this Gyration mouse and keyboard combo.
I haven’t ran across any button-style keyboards that were really laptop sized, but you can get “mini” keyboards that aren’t contoured so much and don’t have the numeric keypad.
—PCKeyboard has a mini-size one too, but it’s up around $100 also. PCKeyboard stuff is expensive, gov-spec but nice, and with most of their models you can get a laptop-type pointing stick in them. http://www.pckeyboard.com/surfer.html
—Cheap alternative #2: Logisys carries a few minis as well- http://logisysus.com/catalog/default.php?cPath=76
…The Logisys website looks strangely amateurish, but I did order once from them and got what I ordered. I ordered the blue and gray mini-keyboard model LG-801. It has soft-rubber-style short-press keys that are basically silent. It would work fine, except that the info says it is USB or PS/2, when it is really USB-only–and I really needed a PS/2 (USB devices don’t work until USB services start up, and this ended up requiring reconnecting a PS/2 keboard often). I never bothered to try to return it, so I can’t say how that would have gone over. I used it on a Fedora machine, and Fedora did find and operate the keyboard automatically just fine after everything was up and running. It had special multimedia and internet keys IIRC but they only had Windows drivers on the CD, they didn’t work but the regular keys did. I never tried to install it on a Windows machine.
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Try to hunt down a Zippy keybioard. It should be available on Newegg.com and other computer retailer Web sites. The keyboard is flat, the action is similar to that of a laptop, and the keys are smaller than that of a standard keyboard.
At home, I have a very rare keyboard that you might want to hunt down. It’s a keyboard with the arrow and page navigation keys located adjacent to the main field, and without the number pad on the right. It’s heavy, black, and the feature that mapes people go “wow” … the letter of each key is illuminated in red. Unlike the Zippy, the keys themselves aren’t translucent and completely lit; just the letters, like a car dashboard. The key action is solid, although not clicky like an IBM Type M.