RIP Dell Quietkey
Posted on July 3rd, 2008 | by admin |I’ve been a big fan of the Dell Quietkey line of keyboards for the last decade. Of course I hold a special place in my heart for my old IBM Model M or my IBM PC-XT 83-key keyboard before it. Realistically I need the Windows Key for my mad shortcut-fu and something a little less clicky so back in ‘98 or so I moved to the Dell Quietkey.
I’ve been through two since. The old beige model and the newer black model with the trim. Recently it died. The little plastic foot on the bottom right broke off making it wobble like things that wobble do.
Sadly Dell changed the design of the newer Quietkey keyboards and removed much of the trim, something that appalls me. I needed a quick replacement so against all my better judgement I ran down to BigBoxShop(tm). I really need to get an Amazon Prime account already!
Like any happy hacker my keyboard is my weapon and it must be perfect. I tried out a bunch in the store. It used to be a little easier to find an ok keyboard but the latest trend seems to be towards laptop style keys or some nasty squishy-key hybrid.
Finally I settled on the Saitek Eclipse II. My only experience with the brand has been with my flight sticks (I’m a FSX dork) and I’ve been quite happy with those. It illuminates the keys in 3 color choices –something I feel is a little gimicky– but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t using the feature. There is something nice about a subtle red (not blue, that hurts my eyes) glow eminating from below your fingertips while building a LAMP server for your latest brain child.
My only complaint so far is that it doesn’t remember my color choice upon reboot. Yes, my keyboard needs a firmware update. It keeps resetting back to blue when Windows boots.
So anyway thats whats new in my world. A half page post about a glowing red keyboard I paid MSRP for. w00t.