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Product: Slim USB keyboard and cordless mouse
Developer: i-rocks
Requirements: Mac OS X v10.1, USB port
Retail Price: Keyboard - $29.99, Mouse - $29.99

You know Apple is doing something right when keyboard manufacturers are promoting their products with the phrase, “Inspired by Apple, Captured by i-Rocks.” Such is the case with the KR-6170 X-Slim Keyboard. And to look at it, yeah, you’d momentarily think this could be an Apple product, but then you’d think better of it. The design is too pedestrian to be from Apple, and it’s too wide. Apple has nearly always gravitated towards making their keyboards as small as possible, and the KR-6170 just has too much padding around the keys.

Then, of course, there are those funky Windows and contextual menu keys that you obviously wouldn’t find on an Apple keyboard. So, why review a keyboard that’s obviously geared towards Windows users? Because keyboards are keyboards, and there’s usually no reason to limit yourself to those with the Mac compatible logo on the box when looking for new ones.

The KR-6170 X-Slim Keyboard comes in white or black, both of which have a chrome strip accent around the side. It’s 18.11” long, 6.18” wide and 0.83” high. Two legs in the back bottom can be flipped out to raise the keyboard at a slight angle, an improvement over the Apple Keyboard, which forces you to use it at a preset angle. However, unlike the Apple Keyboard, the X-Slim contains no USB ports.

The X-Slim’s biggest asset are the scissor-structure (or X-structure, as i-rocks calls it) keyswitches, which provide very nice feedback on your keystrokes. They go down easily, but snap back up with some life, putting a nice spring to your typing. The keyboard is quiet, too, with only a small (and somewhat pleasant, actually) “click” to be heard as you type.

Unfortunately, there are three issues that prevent me from fully recommending the X-Slim Keyboard. First, the function keys didn’t seem to work as they do on my Apple Keyboard, so I lost Exposé control, my iTunes media controls, the eject key, and such. Whether this was do to the keyboard’s design, a glitch with my personal model or the fact that I needed to set something up, I couldn’t determine. Second, the number lock, caps lock and scroll lock indicator lights are far too bright. When on, they’re accompanied by a tiny white but very bright light that seems to nag at you from the corner or your eye…like driving behind a car at night with the red cover missing from its tail lights. It’s quite annoying, and I was never able to fully get used to it.

And finally, the X-Slim Keyboard uses the large return key format, shaped like a backwards L. To compensate, the \ key is pushed up to the top row, and the delete key is cut in half to make room for it. Because of this, I was constantly hitting the \ key when I wanted to hit delete…another problem I could never get used to. If this is your standard keyboard layout, you’ll be fine. For the rest of us, it’s just too unnatural to get around.

The RF-7550A 2.4GHz Cordless Optical Mouse shares similar compatibility issues, but is generally pretty solid. i-rocks is selling this as a mouse for notebooks, but I found it a bit too large for that purpose. Because I prefer my laptop cases to be as small as possible, I need a small mouse, as well. The 2.4GHz Cordless Optical Mouse about 3/4 the size of my standard Logitech desktop mouse; not quite small enough to make it truly portable. However, i-rocks does include a decent travel pouch, and the USB dongle receiver is small enough to fit into even the tightest USB port layouts on laptops.

The 2.4GHz Cordless Optical Mouse operates on one AA battery (included), and includes an on/off switch on the bottom to preserve battery life when the mouse is not in use (a “battery low” indicator just below the scroll wheel area will let you know it’s time to replace the battery). Oddly, when I plugged in the USB dongle, a message appeared on my screen stating I couldn’t use the new keyboard until I told the computer what type of keyboard it is. This didn’t affect use of anything, but I found it quite strange that the dongle was apparently feeding bad info to the computer.

Unfortunately, the 2.4GHz Cordless Optical Mouse isn’t configurable, so you’re stuck with the settings it wants you to use. This is fine for the left and right buttons and the scroll wheel, but the thumb buttons are stuck on back/forward browser use. And curiously, although the mouse is designed for right or left handed use, these side thumb buttons are only on the left, meaning only righties have access to them. I also found the scroll wheel button a bit hard to press if my hand wasn’t in the perfect position. This may not be such a bad thing, however, as it prevented me from clicking it accidentally while scrolling.

Beyond these complaints, the 2.4GHz Cordless Optical Mouse worked quite well. With 2.4GHz RF technology, a nearly 50 foot range and 800 dpi optical performance, the mouse proved to be very precise and responsive. It also seems quite durable, although I wasn’t able to put it through any prolonged periods of heavy travel. From a design point of view, the black and silver color approach is a nice complement to the look of the MacBooks Pro and Air.

There are mice out there that are better designed for travel, and there are those better designed for desktop use. But, if you’re looking for one that fits well with both, the i-rocks 2.4GHz Cordless Optical Mouse is a good choice…provided you’re happy with the default button programming. Thankfully, the fairly low cost of both products make the limitations a bit easier to deal with.