Intro

Keyboards; everyone has them, and you use them everyday, so you want a good one right? Yes you most certainly do (don’t lie). Now we get to take a peek at Xoxide’s All clear multimedia keyboard.

Packaging

When I saw this package waiting outside for me I couldn’t believe the size of it!!! It was approx 20x12x8”. The keyboard itself safely inside it measures 18x8x1.5”. That’s a giant package for something little!! It was VERY well packed, and completely safe for the journey.

As you can see the box is a bit bent up. I happened to like this from a reviewer’s point of view. Now as the package was busy getting beat up during transit it tested the packaging that Xoxide did. When I happened to open the box I found the keyboard to be completely safe, not a thing wrong with it.

Features

Features are taken from the box of the item.

• www back
• www forward
• www stop
• www refresh
• www search
• www favorites
• calculator
• web/home
• email
• v-volume
• v+volume
• mute
• prevtrack
• stop
• play/pause
• next track
• media select
• power
• sleep
• wake up

Now that’s A LOT of features! I didn’t know a simple multimedia keyboard could fit that much in it.

It’s the little things that count…

These are just the little things that happened to matter to some. The first thing that I noticed when I started typing with this keyboard was that it typed slightly loud. My other keyboard that I got for $10 typed fairly quiet. The other thing which is more of a user preference is the positioning of the keys, particularly by the arrows. If you look below you will see that the enter button is large, some people may like this, personally I don’t. Also the backspace key is the size of the normal keys on the board, another thing I personally don’t like. Also the print screen, scroll lock and pause/break buttons are aligned with the number row keys, not the function keys up top. A picture can be seen below for a closer look. Note that all that is user preference.

Now for the other things: The keyboard cord is fairly long, measuring at 4 ½ feet. This was enough for me, but not by much. Next the Num Lock, Caps Lock, and Scroll Lock LED’s are the standard (and boring) green. Green is boring, other colored LED’s would have been much better. Also the letters on the keys are not black or white like normal ones, but they are blue. Another thing, the drivers are on a Dino Disk, a.k.a. floppy disk. This was disappointing since many do not use floppy drives anymore. I keep one handy, but not hooked up. The keys were easy to read in just monitor light at night. I didn’t expect this at all, but it was just fine.

Performance

The keyboard performed as was expected of it. All the extra keys worked, the calculator key is a very nice addition to it. The internet keys worked in IE and also worked in Maxthon (MyIE2). However try as I might I could not get the media keys to work in Winamp. The volume keys worked, but the play/pause, stop next track etc. would not. This is very disappointing to me. However all the keys worked wonderfully in Windows Media Player.

Conclusion

Overall this is an above average keyboard, it’s got great features that work, but not in every program. It looks great and has few flaws, and it’s got great modding potential. The support of the media player keys only working in Windows Media Player brings this down.

Pros:

Clear

Many extra keys

Price ($15 normally)

Blue printed letters

Cons:

Media keys only work in Windows Media Player

Standard green LED’s

Opinions:

Slightly loud typing

Keys by arrows (see pic above)

Comfortable

Bottom Line: Its worthy of replacing my old keyboard.

Overall I give it a 7/10