More of the Mouse, Keyboard, Software and Conclusion
Using MouseRate, a neato little program that Dan Rutter uses which tells you how fast your PS2 mouse is updating, I found this hardware seems to be limited to 63Hz. After going into control panel / mouse / hardware / properties / advanced settings, I found a little box for sample rate. Despite setting it to 100, (which gave my stock Microsoft Intellimouse ball mouse a sample rate of 100+Hz in MouseRate), the Cherry optical mouse never lifted it’s sample rate far from 60Hz. Not to be daunted, I then found PS2Rate and wound my mouse update rate to 200Hz. Mr Vanilla Intellimouse managed a consistent 162-163Hz. The Cherry mouse was still on 62-63Hz.
I expect this means that all the hardcore gamers out there will probably get one of these mouses just so they’ll have an excuse when they’re performing at a level below what they know in their hearts they have the ability to achieve. ”Oh bother, my mouse is lagging... darn thing won’t go over 60Hz refresh.”
Of course, if they really are performing badly, they might want to consider the Logitech cordless freedom optical. Dan says its update rate is around 50Hz. As for the Microsoft Wireless Intellimouse Explorer, well, in the same review Dan reckons it might get 35Hz. Can you say ‘Where lag you lag to lag today?’
OK gamers, I know I’m playing your emotions like a fiddle, but just to show there’s no hard feelings, here’s the good oil. The Logitech MX700 utilising ‘Fast RF technology’ (‘Redtonsils’ would have been better) has, according to the Logitech ‘whitepaper’, (an advertisement in .pdf format is still an advertisement, not a white paper) a polling/refresh/update rate of 125Hz, the same as USB mouses. Go get you one.
In conclusion, what else is there to say about a mouse? Left, right, scroll wheel, a questionable sparkly light grey / matt dark grey colour scheme, and don’t try using it on a glass desk.
The Keyboard...
 
... is a nice heavy piece of gear (1.2 kg). Naturally, I hadn’t even used it before I pulled it to pieces.
The key mechanism is a membrane type. I'm not sure exactly what the little rubber doodahs sheet is made of. It appears to be silicone. The Cherry catalogue mentions a black rubber version, but it looks like this is some new technology which hasn't made it into the catalogue yet. The feel of the keyboard is uniquely 'squidgy' compared to a buckling spring keyboard. There's a slightly higher amount of initial resistance to depression of the key, which then relatively 'collapses' down. I like it. A lot. YMMV.
The ergonomics of the board are good, without being anything special. I find the wrist rest pretty useless, as I rest my forearms on the raised leading edge of my desk's slideout keyboard tray anyway. Others who have their keyboard at normal desk height, not under it on the tray like I do, will probably get more use out of the wrist rest. I bet that piece of information really helped you decide whether or not to buy one, didn’t it?
The layout's pretty stock 105-key international, with a bunch of browser keys along the top and a cutesy little round bunch of (ostensibly) multimedia player control keys at the top right of the board. (Otherwise known in the manual as ’19 special keys’. That’s special, not Sspeshal.) It has the standard ‘Bill Gates made three cents royalty on this keyboard’ windows keys, although given this keyboard is available in a multitude of layouts (Belgian, Danish, Swedish/Finnish etc.), I’m surprised there’s no option to have a little penguin key instead.
The 2 non-rechargeable batteries included will last more than a year with normal use in an office setting according to the manual. Even including the ‘50% fudge factor’ I have calculated from the mouse, 6 months is still not bad. Plus, just using the ‘50% fudge factor’ was a lot easier than pulling out the multimeter like Dan does.
Now, unlike just about every other keyboard reviewed on the net in recent memory, nothing at all glows on this keyboard. This will be a problem for some. Just remember, this is German designed gear - ask yourself how many Porsches you’ve seen with washerjet LED’s. I think you probably could fit a 30cm CCFL inside the keyboard casing and power it off a bunch of coin batteries though. I don’t think much light will escape, as there’s few gaps under the keys through which it might shine, but you’ll know it’s there, and that’s what counts.
The Software
The unit comes with some Windows based (98, NT, ME, 2K, XP) ‘KeyM@n’ software for assigning the ‘special’ keys to pretty much whatever you want. I use ‘em to launch programs myself. I wish there was some little stickers or something to help remember what key does what though.
You can assign them to open web pages, files, folders, programs, macros etc. There’s also several power and system management functions which can be directly assigned, such as opening control panel, run box , minimising and maximising stuff etc.
There’s also a little drop box you can leave on your screen to rapidly assign keys by dragging a file or something onto it. Neat. Computers really are making a difference to the way we live our lives today.
You can also find out the battery status and the dipswitch settings from the properties menu, in case you care.
The software version on the CD I had (v2.0.20) caused me a screen freeze, which I just never get under W2K SP2, so I went and found KeyM@n 2.1 on the Cherry site. Since then, no probs whatsoever. That’s pretty hardcore bug tracking by me right there, I know, but I if’n I knew sumpin about ‘puters, I wouldn’t be reviewing keyboards, would I?
Conclusion
In summary, the thing I like the most about this gear is the fact that the name has a little ‘@’ in it. This is cool and shows that black clad Berlin marketing guru’s are down with leetspeak. I give it 12^2 stars, on the Fibonacci scale up to a maximum of a three digit prime number.
Slightly more seriously, I don’t regret spending the $200 on it, and at the 2 month mark am pretty sure I’ve bought a quality piece of hardware. In retrospect though, it may not be the Porsche of keyboard/mouse combos. I’d say it’s more like a VW New Beetle. It’s safe, it’s solid, it’s designed to appeal to yuppies with more money than sense, and no one who cares about performance will ever buy one (not even the RSi version).
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