Keyboards and mice

[Sapphiron]

Hi All

I have been noticing a trend that is staring to "grind my gears" ala family guy.

1. Look and feel quality of microsoft corded keyboard ans mice are dropping

a. Microsoft Comfort curve 2000 (old model) vs Comfort curve 3000 (new model)​

i. It has no feet to angle it​

ii. Glossy plastic gets scratched easily​

iii. Keystoke nowhere near as solid​

b. higher numbers of failures​

i. in 2009 we had 1 faulty MS keyboard out of 40 purchased​

ii. in 2012 so far we have 13 faulty out of 30 purchased​

c. same story with the other corded MS keyboards.​

2. Logitech is dumping unwanted keyboard layouts in South Africa.

a. wtf is up with the tiny left shift. is it a drive to prevent people from using CAPS?​

b. the enter key on every keyboard I have ever seen is either a wide rectangle or a large L shape. What is up with the tiny "modern art" style button in the wrong place.​

c. Full product ranges no longer available in South Africa​

d. FYI they do make normal key layout keyboards as well.​

e. They discontinued the UltraX keyboard and I have still not forgiven them for that. http://dobrochan.ru/src/jpg/1001/Logitech_UltraX_Keyboard.jpg​

I have got more important things to worry about in our IT department than user x's keyboard, either being broken or complaints about the key layout.

I insist on giving staff a decent quality keyboard with good level of comfort. Why is Microsoft and Logitech making it so hard!

I am even considering going with entry level razer or coolermaster gaming keyboards.

What are you guys noticing or doing?

 

[Totempole]

I know exactly what you're talking about. Most of these keyboards don't even include USB to PS/2
adapters anymore either. Genius make some pretty good keyboards, but nobody seems to be
importing the good ones anymore.

The Genius KB-110 is a good "Value" Keyboard, and has a good key layout as well, but the feet to
angle it are flimsy.

 

[|tera|]

I agree. I bought a Microsoft Arc mouse, great mouse, but in the last 3 months (I have had it more than a year) my scroll wheel stopped responding when scrolling up. It's a well known issue online and there are tutorials to show you how to open it up and tape the wheel to fix it.

Yet, why am I forced to do this with an almost R400 piece of hardware? I paid for it to work longer than a year, so why doesn't it.

MS Basic Optical mice from 10 years ago still function without a hitch. It's crap. It's pathetic and makes me really agrivated