Microsoft Office Keyboard

In the fast-moving world of modern computing, the poor old keyboard has hardly got out of the starting blocks. Keyboard technology has remained pretty static for years but recently there's been a spate of chic looking keyboards with a host of gizmos and shortcuts. Microsoft has now got in on the act with the new Office Keyboard.

It has an ergonomically moulded and pleasingly curved look to it, which gives support to your hands. The feel and spring of the keys is soft and silent and the keyboard is very pleasant to use. The white and grey colour scheme is unexciting but is also inoffensive and likely to match your PC. It connects by either a PS/2 or USB port.

On the left of the keyboard is a panel with some handy shortcut keys for clicking back and forth between internet pages, cutting, copying, pasting and opening different windows on your toolbar.

It may seem a bit of a gimmick but the amount of time you save by pressing a single button instead of moving your mouse pointer to a menu or highlighting text is enough to make a difference. You even get a scroll wheel, though if you're prepared to pay £60 for a keyboard, you will almost certainly already have a scroll mouse.

The 12 shortcut Hot Keys are found at the top for launching and returning to popular programs, such as Word, Excel and your internet browser, with a single touch. These really are useful because you can jump between windows without fiddling around with your mouse.

Each function key is labelled to indicate what shortcut it performs. This helps with common tasks such as Help, New, Open, Close, Reply, Forward, Send, Spell Check and so on, but you can switch it off if you prefer to have normal use of the function keys.

For a keyboard costing this much, you might expect a cordless option but Microsoft hasn't taken this onboard. It's a useful, if luxurious, peripheral for the discerning PC typist.

Contact: Microsoft
0845 700 2000
www.microsoft.com

ALSO CONSIDER: Logitech Internet Navigator. If you're looking to upgrade your keyboard, the Internet Navigator is a safe bet. £30.