This Arctic Cooling keyboard is compact to save space, and has a multi-Touch pad for cursor navigation too. It's wireless and has multimedia keys, and Arctic Cooling even throw in the batteries.
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have been expanding their product line with non cooling items for quite a while now, and we've looked at many of them here over the past year or so. Today I'm looking at a product that many HTPC users will find of interest, or anyone with a need to put some distance between them and their PC but still be able to use it.
The is … well it's a keyboard with a touchpad like you would find on a laptop. The idea is to give you a single wireless device for PC input. One thing that isn't readily apparent though, is that this isn't a full-size keyboard, with the being only a little bigger than a DVD Case. So it's not too big and not too small; Let's find out if it has the Goldilocks appeal.
Specifications
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Connectivity |
USB Mini Receiver |
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Battery |
AAA x 2 |
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Operation Distance |
10 m |
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Touch Pad Sensitivity |
800 dpi |
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Dimensions (Product) |
280 L x 112 W x 17 H mm |
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Dimensions (Packaging) |
298 L x 148 W x 23 H mm |
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Limited Warranty |
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UPC |
CZ : 0872767004504 |
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DE : 0872767004498 |
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UK : 0872767004474 |
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US : 0872767004481 |
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Product Net Weight |
280 g |
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itemnumber |
KBACO-K4810-GBD01 |
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Gross Weight |
0.6 kg |
The pictures of the box don't give an accurate scale, so make sure you check out the dimensions above to see the size (less width than a school ruler). The Arctic Equipment K481 Wireless Keyboard with Multi-Touch Pad comes in a standard Arctic Cooling themed package; a grey/silver on white, with a photo of the item on the front. You can easily see that the K481 comes with a USB Receiver and batteries, as well it's more pertinent functions and features.
The rear of the box expands on the features, especially the multi-touch nature of the touchpad.
Inside the box, the keyboard itself is wrapped in a foam sheet, while the batteries and receiver are held with in a cardboard insert that also holds the keyboard securely.
As mentioned, included with the K481 Keyboard are a pair of AAA batteries (Arctic Cooling branded) a small USB Receiver and a fold out instruction sheet in multiple languages.
The instructions sheet explains how to insert the batteries and also the gestures and finger placements for the multi-Touch touchpad.
The keyboard itself is your standard black in colour, and features a keyboard not unlike that you might find on a netbook, both in size and function. Many of the keys double up with other functions aside from the basic and shifted functions they offer. This gives you a normal QWERTY key layout, with keypad functions as well.
The Keys themselves are nicely shaped and evenly spaced with a few exceptions. As you can see above, the TAB key is very narrow, although in use I've not found this to be a problem. All of the more oft used keys are of a larger size. The F1-F12 row of keys is much narrower by comparison, as they are not as often used; this helps to save space.
The middle area of the keyboard has the right hand side of the keys themselves, which features the afore mentioned functioned keys. As you can see in the photo, the keys here offer keypad, arrow, and navigation keys such as you would find on a full size keyboard. Interestingly, there is already separate arrow keys at the bottom of the keyboard, but I guess choice is always appreciated.
Moving to the far right, traditionally the keypad area and we find the multi-Touch touchpad. The touchpad is a little smaller than you might find on your average laptop, but not so as you would notice at a glance; it's not till you use it that you realise it's a little bit smaller than most. Below the touchpad are two large mouse keys, left and right.
Above the touchpad we find some basic multimedia keys; from left to right, Play-Pause, Volume Up, Mute, Volume Down.
Sitting above the multimedia keys are three small openings, which once the keyboard is powered reveal themselves to be blue LED's to indicate Caps Lock, Num Lock and Scroll Lock. They also indicate power as all three will light up for about a second when power is turned on.
The photo above is taken for a side on view of the keyboard, so we can see that it is angled down towards the front, much as you would expect. The lower part tapers downwards nicely and makes it more comfortable during typing.
Flipping the K481 Keyboard over, we can see that the rear is quite uneventful. There are four rubber feet in each corner and couple of stickers with the RoHS, CE and other information on. Top right you can see the battery cover.
Top left is an On/Off switch. This is a simple slide switch and as you will see below, is something I've not used as often as you might expect, nor for the reason you would assume. Let's move on to testing the K481 and I'll explain.
