Apple Wireless Keyboard Review

Editor's Score
Features:	Performance:
Value:
The Verdict: It's super thin, incredibly sleek but not suited for daily use.

Apple’s Bluetooth-based wireless keyboard is almost half the size of the regular keyboard, super thin and incredibly sleek. These are generally not the top factors I would keep in mind when buying a keyboard but they’re nice to have none the less.

This keyboard is meant to be a replacement or a secondary keyboard, and hence, you’ll have to have an existing keyboard and mouse in order to get your Mac started. You’ll also need Bluetooth enabled and Mac OS X v10.5.8 to use this keyboard.

The installation process is fairly painless. Make sure the keyboard is switched on, turn Bluetooth on, Click on “Set up a Bluetooth device”, select keyboard, follow the steps and you’re good to go. The wireless keyboard should be recognized from this point on. You can now choose to disconnect your old keyboard or simply use the wireless as a secondary keyboard.

The Apple Wireless Keyboard is super thin and sleek.

As we mentioned before, this is one slick keyboard. The keyboard is incredibly thin with a cylindrical battery slot at the back, which helps it stay tilted for ease of typing. It has a snazzy aluminum casing with white keys, which protrude out slightly, giving you enough feedback when you click on it without making too much noise. There’s sufficient distance between keys and even though it’s only slightly more than half the size of a regular keyboard, it doesn’t feel crammed. The fact that the keys don’t protrude upwards too much also makes it very easy to clean between them. If you get dust between the keys or the occasional cookie crumbs from your evening Tube Snack (that’s what it’s called when you have a snack while watching YouTube and yes, I did just coin the term. Copyright pending.), you can easily wipe it away with a cloth.

The small form factor does come with a price though. The numpad is done away with. If you’re an accountant or tend to use Excel on your Mac, you might want to avoid this keyboard – the lack of a numpad will annoy you to no end. We could almost forgive the lack of a numpad but then Apple’s Wireless Keyboard also commits the sin of not providing a Delete key. Yes, there is a backspace and you can use it to do most of what the Delete key does but it’s just not the same. Try using a word processor and better still, try writing a letter/email without one and you’ll realize how frustrating it is not to have the Delete key. For Dhs399, you’d think a Delete key isn’t too much to ask.

Apple’s Wireless Keyboard isn’t really best suited for daily use particularly if you use your Mac for writing letters and sorting your accounting, but if you only use it to surf the web and watch videos, you might find the small form factor lucrative enough to make the switch to this wireless keyboard.