Microsoft Designer Compact Keyboard Review

The $ 69.99 Microsoft Designer Compact keyboard is an office evolution natural evolution. It’s very complex and thin, claiming that minimalist slim beast was in professional places. A collection of keyboard tweaks to make things easier for casual users, but not in any way that disturbs or hinders traditional users. In fact, its typographic feel mirrors what you would get from a laptop, which has become a basic experience for most people. The Microsoft Designer Compact keyboard is a unique version of that standard office keyboard, with its lightweight construction and long battery life. Unfortunately, it also requires four CR2032 batteries.

Narrow slender keys

The Compact Designer is a prime example of a slim keyboard, inspired by the elegant Apple Magic Keyboard. Of course, you may be mistaken on both keyboards because of their color schemes and slim profiles. Measuring 0.38 by 11.16 by 4.34 inches (HWD), it is quite small, even by tenkeyless keyboard (TKL) standards. The height of the keyboard is its most striking feature. Its wafer-thin profile is about how thin a keyboard can be. Even when you fix it with the matching number pad ($ 29.99, sold separately), the Compact Designer’s desktop print is smaller than many TKLs. Plus, it weighs only 10.1 ounces, so you can mark the small, round, white rectangle.

The Compact Designer has 79 keys, slightly less than the 87 found on a standard TKL, and a smoothly changed layout. To comb the keyboard into a single block of keys, Microsoft crashes the system function keys you normally have between the alphanumeric keys and the number pad – the arrow keys, Page Up / Down, Lock Lock, Print Screen, etc. – into a bit. additional keys to the right of the board. There is a set of arrow keys in the bottom right hand corner – the Up and Down keys are semi-sized, dividing one chiclet square. Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down share F9-F12. Screen Lock and Delete get new keys on the right side. The action key was moved to the left of the spacebar, between Control and the Windows key. Apparently all of those keys moving around the edge should push a learning loop, but I only bent for an old key once or twice.

Replacing the action key between right-wing and the arrows will get Designer Compact’s most interesting feature, a dedicated emoji key. Pressing the Powerful Insertion key, as Microsoft calls it, opens the Windows emoji table. It’s a small system menu with rows and layers of symbols that you click to add to any text box, as you would with the emoji table on your phone’s virtual keyboard. Technically, the registry is not new or exclusive: You can access this registry on Windows with any keyboard by pressing the Windows key and either time or semicolons. Nonetheless, making it more visible ensures that everyone knows about it, and puts it at your fingertips.

I think visibility is an important issue, as the menu is very useful when weaving into your daily print. It features a wide range of emoji and kaomoji, or text characters such as the “shruggie” —gie (ツ)/ ¯. The symbols are loosely arranged in categories such as “smiles,” “people,” “food and plants,” and “transport and places,” but you can also press the key and find an emoji name to find it. . Of course, to do a proper analysis you need to know the Microsoft names for the emoji, which did not match the names in my head.

The Enter Punctuation key also has a useful function: There is a Symbols menu that gives you quick access to the full range of English punctuation marks, including some that are usually requires long snapshots like the hidden em em. I know of professional writers who copy em dashes into their versions because pressing Alt + 0151 is a pain, so this could be mostly for the right person.

In addition to the physically moved keys, the Designer Compact keyboard follows Apple’s model for action keys, returning the F1-F12 keys and their other functions, so you can you basically have tools like Mute, Page Up / Down, Volume Up / Down, Search, and Screenshot. You can still access F1-F12 using the action key. You can also switch back to Windows status using the Microsoft keyboard config app.

Typing on the Compact Designer is both high and low. The chiclet keys with scissors switch offer a lot of travel, considering they are housed in a thin layer of plastic. The action is small, but substantial in every smooth press, with no million-times of squishy feedback. It instantly installs the Compact Designer as well as cheap budget keyboards that you find on Amazon, which look very similar and cost less, but are also uncomfortable and fragile.

That comfort, while impressive, is still relative: Using a keyboard this flat takes its toll on the fingers. Pressing the keys hard feels like trying to push your fingers through a wall. If you do it long enough, it can start to hurt. To be clear, these are issues you’ve experienced with a thin, to some extent laptop-style keyboard. And, unlike many keyboards, the Design Compact can be very comfortable while having a light touch. As someone who prefers mechanical keys, I notice the sharper issues than someone who only uses this type of keyboard.

Like many high-end productivity keyboards, the Designer Compact features a multi-channel Bluetooth wireless connection. You can connect the keyboard to up to three devices, such as PCs, phones, and tablets, and turn on the fly with the push of a Bluetooth button (usually F1). Switching from machine to machine is relatively quick and easy, although in some cases you may need to repair it, which limits its usefulness.

Finally, we come to battery life, where the Compact Designer also achieves high and low levels. On the flip side, the keyboard seems to get up to “36 months” – thirteen years – at a single cost, according to Microsoft. The keyboard, on the other hand, requires four CR2032 batteries in the shape of a dog, which no one will ever carry around.

It is the most remote battery legacy. Battery life is so good, you may only need to put 2-4 hours into the life of the keyboard, but you’re generating e-junk and you’ll surely have a moment where you can’t use a keyboard because the battery is dead and you don’t have another one. As a matter of fact, I’m not a fan, but you never let track battery life and that’s important to some people.

Microsoft Mouse and Keyboard Center

Although not mentioned in the manual, Microsoft offers a configuration app for the Key Compact Design – and most Microsoft peripherals – that allows you to redesign keys and configure wireless settings. This Microsoft Mouse and Keyboard Center allows you to redesign many of the action sequence keys, in addition to the meaningful Insert key. You can also build an Action lock, prioritizing the F-actions over media controls and summaries. The app enables app-specific configurations and special shortcuts, but are limited to four keys – F5-F8. It is a very limited configuration tool. That said, that’s the equivalent of the course with productivity keyboards.

It’s a laugh

The level of comfort and overall typing experience you get from a scissor switch keyboard is top notch, the only top you’ll find in most laptops and thin keyboards. However, the Microsoft Designer Compact keyboard is up there with the best of them, namely the Logitech MX Keys. In fact, a tiny footprint is better value and cheaper price – $ 69.99 compared to the $ 99.99 Keys.

In addition, the Microsoft Designer Compact keyboard makes a lot of neat, user-friendly changes that I would love to see embraced by manufacturers across the board. The keyboard layout, combined with a minimalist design and good low-end typing, makes it easier to make steep, everyday computing. That’s enough for most of us to make our best keyboard.