Enough of the pleasentries, lets see what the limits of this keyboard are. First of all I will weigh, because hey, if its wireless you might wanna carry it somewhere while you type. It weighs in at around 780 grams, which in my opinion doesnt feel very heavy for a keyboard. Although you can feel the weight of them 3 AAs in the top.

Now for some range testing on the receiver, according to the box the operating distance is 1.5m. I walked backwards from the computer scrolling a web page up and down until it wouldnt scroll anymore and I got about 2.5m away before it died. I was dissapointed, my dads wireless logitech mouse works well over 2.5m away. Walls did not appear to affact this distance particularly. My next test was interfearence. I placed the receiver in the most tangled up mass of mains cables I could find.

I then proceeded to turn as many things on as possible and see if it still functioned correctly. Well it had no effect at all other than to boost the operating range to over 5m. This was quite amazing, so I turned all the stuff off but left the receiver under all the cables. The operating range stayed at the over 5m (my tape measure ran out, it was probably around 6m). I then put the receiver back in the middle of the floor where I conducted my first test. It seemed fine with the extra distance so the first test must have been a freak accident (damn aliens). The box claims it has 256 IDs per channel and it is a 2 channel keyboard. The only thing I have noticed with this keyboard is the tendency for whenever I press CTRL+S to save my cursor moves back 4 characters, it doesnt do it every time but only after I have been typing for awhile. Whether this is the keyboard or not I dont know, since I cant reproduce the error every time making it a little hard to test. But it is annoying.

I also tried the keyboard in a game of counter strike and it performed fine, seemed just as responsive as my non-wireless keyboards and there didn't appear to be any problems with pressing multiple keys.

I would test battery life but without running them flat I cant tell you how long they will last. And that could be 2 days or one month. But there is a light on the keyboard that should lightup when they go low.

To sum up, its a nice keyboard for a nice price, the range is respectable and the look pretty good and it wont rock your bank balance. The only negatives I can think of is the poor software that comes with it and the mysterious CTRL+S syndrome. It seems to only be those 2 keys, CTRL+A seems fine as well as ALT+TAB. There is also a slight flaw in the look of the keyboard.

As you can see there appears to be markings where Num-Lock and Caps-Lock lights would go. Other than that though, I would reccommend this keyboard for anyone looking to go wireless at a cheap level. Yes you could pay more for the Microsoft or Logitech name, but to be perfectly honest, I quite like to be Chic (been waiting to slip that pun in all review).

Patrick Beaumont

Well its nearly a month on and new information has come to light (Thanks Carsten Otto!). In the review I talk about my cursor jumping back a few characters every time I press Ctrl+S. I received a rather helpful e-mail explaining that this is a problem with certain versions of notepad. So it seems the Chic is not at fault. Also the battery low light has not yet come on and the keyboard is working great. I really do reccommend this keyboard.

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