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Adesso Slim Touch Desktop Keyboard
I received two Adesso Keyboards several weeks ago and set out to test both of them. One is a Touchpad (USB but non-Bluetooth) Keyboard. That is the one covered in this article. If you are interested in the Adesso Mini Keyboard that uses Bluetooth to connect your Bluetooth equipped computer or Laptop/Notebook just CLICK HERE.
The Addesso Slim Touch Desktop Keyboard (AKB-440UB) is good looking. The all black surface, black keys, little icons on the function keys, and a silver metal outside edge all give it a nice look. It feels solid and hefty at 1.75 lbs. Size 18.25" x 6.5" x 1”. The touchpad is placed well for a right hander. Not so good for lefties. Like the Dell keyboard it has a set of numbers just below the Function keys and a full numeric keypad to the far right for those who do lots of work with numbers. Above the number row are some multi-function hot keys that can be activated with a press while holding the “Fn” button. My favorites are the little house that opens my home page and the envelope Icon that opens my Outlook Express mail.. The others are mostly for use with multimedia functions.
I installed the Slim Touch Desktop Keyboard on my Dell Desktop running XP. It was easy. Just be sure to turn off the computer prior to removing the old keyboard USB cable and replacing it with the new one. When that is done restart the system. The Quick Start sheet says you can go to a website and download drivers to add special features to the mouse pad. Those are: Horizontal Scrolling, Zoom In/Out and Back, Forward functions. I would check with their site if you are running Windows 7. The sheet says the drivers, at that point, were not ready for Windows 7.
When installed the touchpad pointer moved around like a quick rabbit. I looked for a dedicated place to reset the speeds and such. It turned out this Touchpad uses the same mouse setting folder in control panel that changes all mouse functions. That means when you slow down the pointer for the touchpad you also slow down your mouse. Since I had already slowed the mouse these new changes made the touchpad fine but the mouse became so slow it was like watching paint dry when I used it. I know you are supposed to remove the mouse and just use the pad but I am mouse addicted so left it plugged in.
The touchpad not only had the left and right buttons below it for opening or dragging things but has a white set of lines that indicate left and right areas built into the pad screen. Tap twice on the lower area and open a file or program. Place the pointer over a file or folder then tap once on the upper area and open a list of possible functions you can do. Once you get the idea you can use these for many the functions without leaving the actual pad.
I played several games of Solitaire, opened a few folders, checked files, worked on this article, and became fairly proficient with the touch pad and the keyboard itself. The Adesso Slim Touch Desktop Keyboard is larger than the keyboard that came with the Dell so it takes up slightly more desk space. This is offset by its added capability. When I returned to the Dell keyboard I did miss the Adesso Slim Touch Desktop Keyboard.(AKB-440UB)
To see more details on this and other Adesso products CLICK HERE.
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