ENERMAX KB006U-B Black 82 Normal Keys 12 Function Keys USB Mini Aurora Micro Aluminum Keyboard

Pros: Extremely tactile feel to the keys. Laptop-esque, but not mushy at all. Very little travel between the keys. Two sets of legs for elevation, nice touch. Two USB jacks, one on each side. T-style arrow keys. VERY solid feeling, due to the aluminum housing. Pleasant to write and type with.

Cons: L-style enter key. Pipe key is to the left of the right shift key. If that doesn't make sense, check the photographs, as I wish I had prior to buying this keyboard. Functionally speaking, this is my only true nitpick. Can't fault the keyboard though for what I wasn't able to notice before hand.

However, due to a lot of OSs turning on NumLock at boot, before you enter your OS login password, be sure to turn this off.

Also, the metallic letter stickers for the "Enermax" logo were badly placed on the metal frame, so I just pried them off.

Also, I have absolutely no use for the Office/Internet function buttons at the top.

Hey Enermax, any chance of a normal layout with a rectangular enter key, and the pipe above it? I'd seriously rebuy this keyboard right this very second if that version were to be made available.

Other Thoughts: If Enermax were to remove the useless media keys at the top, and redo the layout for a normal EN-US keyboard layout (no L shaped enter key, proper pipe placement, etc), I would rebuy and recommend the hell out of this keyboard.

Pros: Quality, space saving size, quiet keys, layout of keys is very nice and usable for a small keyboard, feel/response of keys is excellent, works flawlessly, nice looking.

Cons: None for me. I've used it daily all this year.

Other Thoughts: I don't use numbers often and wanted to create a more ergonomic layout for my keyboard and mouse and it works well to have the mouse closer to the keyboard.

Pros: Very nice quality, good "feel", small/compact size. 2 USB ports handy. Handy extra keys (cut, paste, email, browser, etc.)

Cons: Bright lights (scroll lock, num lock). BackSpace key shifted a little away from normal reach. But it will feel normal in a day or two.

Other Thoughts: Looks like a winner.

Pros: Physically, high quality -

Cons: The keyboard is not recognized until the system is booted. This means that once you change the bios to "halt on all but keyboard" like I did, you'll, never get into the bios again (I can't hit the delete key to access the bios until booted). Also, on hard shutdown, when it asks if you want to start windows normally, the enter key is useless (you have to wait the 20 seconds or so to let it automatically choose "start windows normally". I just rebuilt my computer, including new mother board - same problem

Other Thoughts: Note that even before I changed to "halt on all but keyboard", The keyboard on boot would not be recognized until I plugged its USB into another port.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Value Customer,

Please contact our technical support for immediate assistance. Please reach us at toll free 888-778-7878 ext. 108. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Team Enermax USA

Pros: Looks are King. This keyboard looks great on my desktop and has a small footprint. I am proud to show it off. Moreover the weight is just right, so it doesn't slide around. It has 3 height adjustments which enables you to set the height to your preference. The keys have excellent tactile response and very easy to press It is a joy to type on. The addition of the multimedia keys is a great feature. Instead of having to use the ALT+Home key to go Home I now use the Home key on the multimedia row. Cool! Oh yea, the USB ports on either side are a nice feature as well. I hope this keyboard lasts for several years, unlike my Hipper keyboard which got sticky keys after 6 mths. So far (two weeks) is a great keyboaed

Cons: I only have on hand [left] to type with. My right hand is not functional. I use the Home, End, Page up and Page Down keys all the time for video editing, web design etc. These keys are linked to the Fn Key. This is very annoying to say the least. Any time I need to to use them I have to us the Fn key in conjunction with them. For example, I am using this keyboard to type this review. If I want to go to the End or Front of a line of text I have to use the Fn+End or Fn+Home key [why did Enermax do this]. There are two blank key spots on this keyboard, one above the Home key the other above the End key. I my opinion Enermax should have filled these blank spots with the Home/End keys. Additionally, the led lights are to bright for me. Not a big deal but worth mentioning.

Other Thoughts: I bought this keyboard because as a one handed user I don't use the number pad. I use the number row on top. If I wanted or needed a num pad I would have bought a left handed keyboard. There is no logical reason to have an embedded num pad on a mini keyboard. Enermax could have done away with the Fn key and put the delete key there instead. The Enter key is double sized, WHY?. This takes up space where they could have placed other keys, like the "END" and "HOME" keys. I like the placement of the "/" "\" keys next to each other unlike the, works for me. All in all a very nice keyboard, but I wouldn't want to pay 65.00 dollars for it, but with the rebate offered here its a good buy

Pros: The build quality and key play on this board scream quality. The aluminum slab the keys are mounted to make for one of the most sturdy boards I've seen. I have stub fingers and type with force and with the good rubber feet and the heft of its construction, it goes no where. I have purchased other more expensive mini-keyboards that dont measure up to this unit. With some hardware, people like to complain about bright LED's. Well in the case of this board the blue is so easy to spot out of the corner of my eye that I never type past the regular though accidental caps lock key hits. Even the USB ports are placed exactly where they need to be.

Cons: Minor issue of getting used to the large enter key right under the back space, but now I love it and wouldnt have it any other way!

Other Thoughts: Some reviews indicate key placement issues or omissions. Dont let that deter you from picking up this awesome board. The placement issues are truly minor and easily adapted to.

Pros: Fantastic build quality, great keystroke feel, great look, USB 2.0 ports, very small form factor with full-sized keys.

Cons: Shortened right shift key is too hard to reach, LED lights (to indicate CAPS lock, num lock) are glaringly bright.

Other Thoughts: I bought this to upgrade my Enermax Crystal keyboard, which I thought was a perfect keyboard, but had USB 1.0 ports and contrasted with my color scheme. Many small differences in this keyboard create very serious annoyances for me. The Crystal keyboard had laptop-sized keys, which I preferred because of my relatively small hands. This keyboard has truly full sized keys. The Crystal keyboard's LED lights (to indicate CAPS lock, num lock) were the perfect brightness - filling the indicator window but completely unobtrusive. The LED lights on this keyboard are so glaring that I am aware of and distracted by them, and my keyboard is on a shelf near my lap and my monitor is on a riser. If I ever used the key lock states for more than the briefest of periods, this would be unacceptable. Finally, the small right shift key that is set off far to the right is very hard for me to use (combination of the full sized keys and my small hands). This last problem almost ruins the keyboard for me.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Value Customer,

Thank you for your input, we will bring this attention to our R&D. Thank you for your feedback, if there is anything we can do for you please contact us @ toll free 888-778-7878 ext 108. Thank you for choosing Enermax product.

Sincerely,

Team Enermax USA

Pros: I'm a connoisseur of keyboards. As a writer, I'm constantly looking for the perfect typing instrument.
There's two qualities I look for these days, and this keyboard meets them both: No numeric keypad (so I can keep it centered under the monitor, better ergo), and excellent key action.

Cons: I do have to dock it 1 star though, for the highly frustrating placement of the backslash key. I am constantly hitting a backslash when I really just want to press shift. I know its only day one, but in general a new keyboard shouldn't need this kind of getting used to.
I will revise my review later if this doesn't take long to get comfortable.

Other Thoughts: Enermax, I see you are replying to some people's reviews, which I think is awesome. Please, if you consider a rev to this keyboard in the future, put the backslash key back in the normal location! If you do, I will sing your praises from the mountain tops.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Value Customer,

Thank you for your feedback, we will input your information to our HQ for the future reference. Thank you for choosing Enermax.

Sincerely,

Team Enermax USA

Pros: Agree with pros from other reviews. For me, compactness and sturdiness are foremost requirements. There are no non-standard key additions - especially a back-slash key to the left of the space bar. The right alt and ctrl keys have not been dropped as on other keyboards. There's a row of unobtrusive windows specialty keys above the function keys.

Cons: No dedicated home/end/pgup/pgdn keys. This is probably the only reason I won't be standardizing on this kbd.

Other Thoughts: A very solid, expensive mini-keyboard. Need to design a convenient layout grouping for direction keys + pgup/dn & home/end keys. A little more keyboard width would not be objectionable.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Value Customer,

Thank you for your input, to resolve your problem we do have those keys but not dedicate for it directly. As you see on your bottom right hand corner the arrow keys also have pgup/pgdn/home/end, the way to use them is by holding the Fn key on your left bottom corner. Hopefully this will resolve your problem, thank you for shopping Enermax product. If you have any other questions or concerns please feel free to contact our toll free 888-778-7878, thank you.

Sincerely,

Team Enermax USA

Pros: Compact, sturdy, attractive, good feel.

Cons: I was really happy with this keyboard until about a week ago when it started connecting/disconnecting itself from the USB port at random accompanied by strings of Windows' "ding" sounds. On those occasions when it didn't reconnect itself unplugging and replugging would temporarily fix the problem. I tried to get to Enermax tech support. Four days later they got back to me but offered no help beyond a form letter about how to obtain an RMA. Problem is that there are so many hoops to jump through (I felt like a lion in a circus act) that I still don't know if I'll be able to send it back. I expected better from an expensive keyboard.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Value Customer,

Please contact our toll free number 888-778-7878 ext 108 for immediate assistance with our in house tech for this matter. We will do our best to resolve this problem for you, thank you.

Sincerely,

Enermax USA