Apple Wired Full-Size Keyboard Review

I just picked up the Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad this weekend ($49.99 before tax), and here I sit composing a blog entry with it!  I'm often up late at night working while GF is sleeping, or I'll get "in the zone" while programming and not realize how loud I'm typing.  I figured it was time to do something about that.

Pros:

• Form factor: the keyboard is slim.  It stands about half an inch high at its highest point, compared to my old Dell keyboard at nearly 2 inches.
• Appearance: Apple obviously has this down.  The aluminum casing and white keys just looks slick.  Now if only they had backlit keys like they do for their laptops...
• Keyfeel/sound: definitely quiet - it was hard to hear anything at all in the loud Apple store, but even at home, these keys are quiet.  I'm a fan of the chiclet-style/laptop-style keyboards, and I like the short travel distance.
• Works with Windows: just plug-and-play.  It turns out that the "apple" key maps to the "windows" key on Windows keyboards, so I don't even lose any functionality.

Cons:

• Space bar: the loudest of all the keys by far is the space bar.  It gets a little bit annoying that everything is so quiet, but just punctuated by the space bar.
• Layout: on my old keyboard, from bottom left to right, the keys were CTRL, WINDOWS, ALT, SPACE.  On this one, it's CTRL, ALT, APPLE, SPACE.  Throws off my alt-tab window switching, but I'll get used to it.
• Color: I read some reviews that said that the white keys do eventually get dirty, which is a little sad.  As of now, I'm just making sure to wash my hands every time before using the keyboard.  We'll see how long that lasts.

Overall, would recommend it (based on my 24 hours of possession).  The good keyfeel and quiet strokes are absolute musts, and as I use it more I'll get to try it out for various tasks - blogging, IMing, programming, etc.  Another win for Apple.

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