Microsoft Sculpted Ergonomic Keyboard Long Term Use Review

Again, after using or trying to use the keyboard for a while is the only way to understand if such board can be incorporate into someone’s workflow or part of the day to day system setup.  The person style can change and adapt.  So, sometimes, a person’s perception changes after using a keyboard for a while.  My impression and opinion for Topre switch changed and morphed a few times and finally settled down.

In any case, this is a quality Chiclets keyboard.  The key caps are broad, stable, just flat and tactile enough so that one’s fingers don’t just glide off too easily.  It has that soft curve eye appeal along with plush palm rest with a good design DNA and thoughts put into it.  The key switch are crisp, dances with agility and quiet elegance; for a scissor switch that is.  Indeed, it does deserve its moniker as a sculpture.  However, it is still a scissor switch based keyboard with flat Chiclets design.  So, if one simply cannot abide in shallow key travel distance, rubber dome like force distance curve behavior or simply don’t like the flat keys, there’s no need to apply.  However, if you are a fan of Chiclets style board with Natural Keyboard ergonomic sense, then you might have just found your perfect keyboard.

The Chiclets style keys caps are large, comfortable to type on.  The tactile feedback is pretty good for scissor switch, even though the key travel is relatively shallow compare to a standard mechanical keyboard switch.  If someone who has used any laptops for the last 5 years or so, one should be pretty familiar with the Chiclets keyboard design.  There’s no need to pound on the keys like some of the stiffer scissor switches out there.  The keys switches are fairly quiet, a bit better than most of the mainstream products in the same class I believe.  This is a very good office keyboard because of this.  Overall, this is a good, comfortable keyboard based on the popular Chiclets keyboard design and engineering.

Since I do strike the key fairly hard at times, the keyboard does flex ever so slightly and makes little squeaky sounds when the rubber foot pad shifts position.  The magnetic foot bar sometimes pop out of place.  Perhaps a few more magnets would resolve that.  If that’s the only problem, I think I can overcome that.  However, there’s more.  Let’s just say that I want to like this keyboard because I am a huge fan of the Natural Keyboard.  However, because of a fatal flaw, this keyboard is off the short-list.  My last 3 keyboards have been Natural Keyboard family members.  So, it was not easy.  My muscle memories are so ingrained with its design.  However, I ran into a very serious issue that I didn’t expect:  wireless interference.  This is rather surprising, but then again, when everything these days are on the 2.4GHz band, I should be more surprised that there aren’t more interference.

Long story short, this keyboard misses key strokes.  If I type “Hello World.”, I get “hlllo Worl.”  Yeah, not going to work for me.  I moved the keyboard to another location, hoping that someone is not using their microwave oven or something, but the result is similar, just a bit more abated.  I might lose one character out of 20 or so rather than every 4 keys.  I thought I found the culprit: the number pad.  Maybe the two wireless transmitters are competing over the same band.  So, I gladly shut the pad off.  The situation improved somewhat, but it just wasn’t like using the Logitech Nano-receiver enabled keyboards; which hardly missed a beat.  Finally I figured it out….  The transceiver on the computer is too far from the keyboard.  The limit seems to be around a foot and half or so.  Probably in the name of saving battery power, the transmission wattage is probably too low to go beyond that.  So, this explains why I didn’t experience such issue with laptop setup, but for a desktop, it is a show stopper.  No, fresh battery didn’t make much of a perceivable difference.  Indeed Microsoft proudly boasts how long the battery lasts in its product page.  This might be a design choice or some hidden constraints that I am not aware of.  Either way, this is rather perplexing because Microsoft knows how to make wireless transmitters that also has a reasonable battery life; ex. Xbox wireless controllers, which work well over 10 feet with multiple devices in the same band. 

So, for my use case, this keyboard just didn’t work out.  I might get a USB extension cable to put the transceiver closer to the keyboard, but that kind of defeats the point of being wireless.  I might as well call it close to wired keyboard, but not really.  This keyboard is liken to a classical Greek tragic figure; great at just about everything; especially if you like the guy, but that fatal flaw is just too much to overcome.

In conclusion: this keyboard indeed has what it takes to continue the Natural Keyboard legacy.  However, the wireless transmission needs work.  Therefore, if you can put the USB receiver closer to the keyboard, then you shouldn’t experience any issues.  For my use case, I might as well hook up a wired keyboard for my desktop scenario.  I don’t experience any issues for laptop setup on the other hand.  So, unless I am dying to use a split ergonomic keyboard on a desktop, there’s little selling point given that there are so many other good choices out there.

Grade: B- as it stands, A- if the wireless issue is resolved