13 out of 13 people found this review helpful.
Great for use with laptops too
Date of Review: Sep 28, 2006
The Bottom Line: Reasonably priced, multi-functional keyboard
The Specs
* Comes with keyboard, software CD, manual, USB to PS/2 adapter, detachable palm rest
* System requirements: Windows 2000, XP Pentium 233MHz or higher, 35MB hard drive space; Macintosh OS X v.10.1-10.3X (excluding OS X v.10.0) 30MB hard drive space
* USB or PS/2 port
* CD drive required
* Zoom slider
* volume buttons, media player buttons, 5 my favourite buttons, buttons for opening up: My Documents, My Pictures, My Music, Mail, Web, Messenger, Calculator, Log Off, Sleep, plus basic keyboard functions that you would find in any keyboard
My experience with the product
I bought this keyboard because I wanted to minimize the wear and tear on my laptop's keyboard. I also wanted keys that had the same or similar soft touch as keys on a laptop. I find that laptop keyboards require very light touch whereas desktop keyboards require full "punching" of keys. Also, I wanted to keep my budget to a minimum, so I opted for a wired keyboard and not wireless, which the Digital Media Pro is (ie: wired). Usually, this keyboard is sold at a price around $45 CDN, but at the time I was looking for a keyboard, it was on sale for $29.99 CDN plus tax, and it was the only product out there that met my needs.
Luckily, this keyboard comes with extras, such as the zoom slider, multi-media buttons plus others which save you time from double clicking with a mouse. All you have to do, is to configure the various keys to open up your favorite programs or files, so you can control pretty much all of the most commonly used applications and files with just a touch of a button.
The procedure in assigning your favorite programs and files is a breeze. All you have to do, is to press the "Star" button on your keyboard for configuring the 5 favorite buttons that are on your keyboard, or, click on the Microsoft Keyboard icon that is installed during setup of the keyboard using the software CD.
As for the setup of thee keyboard, according to the manual, you need to install the software that comes on the CD, then while the computer is turned on, plug in the keyboard to the computer. The complete setup takes less than 10 minutes and as soon as it's setup, you're good to go.
The detachable arm rest is really helpful. I can rest my palms on the arm rest and type without having to lock my arms in place as I type. But, because of the springy keys, my hands do get tired rather easily compared to when I type with the keys on a laptop.
So far, I have not experienced any problems with the keys not working or responding. Also, I have not had any problems with the software.
Drawbacks
As I just mentioned, the keys are not as "soft touch" as I would like, but compared to other models within the price range I was looking for, Digital Media Pro was the only one that was easy to operate. Also, I thought that the zoom slider worked with all applications. Not so. It turns out that in fine print on the box that comes with the keyboard, it says you have to check out the Microsoft site to figure out which applications works with the zoom feature. To find out which applications are compatible with the Zoom slider feature, go to: http://download.microsoft.com/download/c/c/b/ccb2b736-5082-4e29-9542-425eab8100a2/ZoomCompatible.pdf
For those of you who don't like to have wired anything, then you may not find this keyboard to be your cup of tea. However, having said that, the cord that connects the keyboard with the computer is fairly long, probably 150cm long. So if you're on a budget, then this keyboard may be worth considering.
Final Note
As for the rest of the keyboard, there is really nothing to complain about. The multi-media buttons which allows you to control: play, stop, forward, backward, volume up, volume down, and mute, all work well and are easy to use. In fact, prior to getting the Digital Media Pro, I had to use the mouse and open up the media application to control volume and play back. But now, almost everything that I normally use on a day to day basis can be easily accessed with the keyboard with just a touch of a button.
Although I'm using this keyboard with a laptop, I'm sure that it would work fine with a desktop as well. Also, for those of you without a USB connection, there is a PS/2 connector that comes with the keyboard.
