Keyboard Dilemma: Which one and why?

Depending on how much time you spent typing, the keyboard will be a pal on your everyday’s life, so you always have to pick one that not only is durable, but also comfortable for your hands and fingers. The same thing goes for mice, but I’ll add an article on that later on.

Now, let’s suppose you’re someone like me (a keyboard killer) and probably replace it once a year, or twice a year on extreme cases?
You need an affordable, yet resistant keyboard to survive the millions-a-day-keystrokes usage, right?

My choice is definitely made: Microsoft’s Digital Media Keyboard.

This is an OEM keyboard, which will bring your cost down by at least 40% if not more.
I got the first Digital Media Keyboard when I was living back in Ourém, Portugal. This was at the time the keyboard I chosen to accompany my new PC.
While I had of course multiple keyboards available there, I got this one because not only it was pretty cheap (€ 32,00) but it appeared to be the most resistant out of the rest (Note: I had a few Logitech OEM and Shine Keyboards on the shelf as well).

A few days ago the day has come: the keyboard was completely damned. You have no idea how much my keyboards suffer! Cigarette ash, food particles, everything goes in! I also dropped a cup of water accidentally over it while I was on the phone with Carlos Caneja, which really made me shop for another one.

Now, I had and still have another keyboard at home, which I bought at the time for my ex-girlfriend. This is a silent keyboard from iOne.
Scorpius-P16 or SC-P16. Here’s how it looks like:

This keyboard is really really silent. But it sucks for multiple reasons. I have no idea who had the brilliant idea of adding those buttons on top of the arrow keys, but who did it should have been fired by now. This is the worst place ever to place those keys on. I remember I had to work on a keyboard from Genius with the same problem and this was really terrible. I’d shutdown the computer every now and then, always accidentally of course. So iOne failed on this particularly. Especially because… look at the top buttons, the ones on the silver part of the keyboard. There was more then enough space to integrate these dangerous buttons there, so why dragging them there?

I use the arrow keys a lot, and I also use (unlike most people) the Insert/Delete, Home/End, PageUp/PageDown columns often.
So this isn’t definitely a keyboard for me or for another person who relies on those columns.

Anyways, I still trusted my gut and just purchased another Digital Media Keyboard from Microsoft. And you know what? I don’t think I will ever change my mind. The layout is very intuitive, the shortcuts are VERY well placed (such as the calculator and session lock buttons on the right). Contrarily to iOne’s SC-P16, all these shortcuts were cleverly placed on areas that it’s almost impossible to accidentally touch them.

The customizable shortcut buttons (those on the top) are very useful. Especially if, like me, you use lots of programs at the same time and open/close them often. Want an example? NotePad. That’s my number 1 shortcut right there. Photoshop is the 2nd and LiveWriter is the 3rd. I don’t really remember the other 2, but that just means I don’t need them often.

Here’s how my old keyboard was after 1 year and half of service:

Really! That’s not dirt by the way, that is how all keyboard end up on my hands. It’s burned. That’s due to sweat and use! Look at the space bar, compare it with the one below - ouch!

And here’s the new one - same model of course:

Well, so my recommendation obviously goes to Microsoft. Get one and you won’t be disappointed at all.
Imagine how that iOne keyboard would end if it had the use of my MS Digital Media Keyboard? It would be way worse, I am sure!

It will stay on my shelf though, might be needed for this or that!