When you’re spending $130 on a keyboard specifically branded for Mac, the fact that it has not been designed to even offer the same degree of functionality as the keyboard that ships with every iMac is a disappointment.Īfter a couple weeks of typing with the Das Keyboard, I realized why Apple had abandoned this sort of keyboard design.
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Finally, although it’s branded as a Mac keyboard, the Das Keyboard lacks shortcut buttons for most of OS X’s built-in functions, like calling up the Dashboard or triggering Exposè in fact, as far as we can tell, the only thing that makes the Das Keyboard Model S Professional for Mac a different product than the regular Model S Professional is that it has Option + Command keys instead of Alt + Windows keys. For another, the media keys are triggered by the Function key, both of which are positioned on the right side of the keyboard, which can make doing something as simple as hitting pause or skipping a track far more trouble than it should be. For one thing, the design couldn’t really be more antithetical to Apple’s iconic visual style. Watch out, Psyduck! The Das Keyboard is loud.Įven if you are someone who wants all of his typing to sound like someone firing a tommy gun into a bucket of steel bearings, though, it’s hard to wholly recommend the Das Keyboard Model S Professional for Mac. Should that email I’m sending my girlfriend with a picture of a cute bulldog eating frosting really sound like an Arctic blacksmith hammering a sword out of a meteorite at his forge? Should the 140 characters I wrote on Twitter regurgitating some in-vogue meme be given all the gravity of the Large Hadron Collider gearing up to smash apart the very building blocks of our universe? When a friend sends me a funny YouTube video and I type “LOL” in response, should each of those letters land as explosively as a shotgun blast dealt point blank to the titanium-coated brain cavity of some futuristic cyborg? No. After a while, the disparity between the weight of what you’re writing and the weight of the Das Keyboard becomes almost comically absurd. Even for those of us who make our living writing several thousand words a day, not everything one writes should fire off like a pistol shot. The words should land so hard it hurts.īut this only goes so far. And why shouldn’t they? When you’re writing a fiery editorial or a passionate letter to your lover, you reason, it should be accompanied by a sort of Faulkner-esque sound and fury. Typing on the Model S makes you feel like your words literally have weight. I am a professional writer, after all, and for a writer, there’s an appeal in the notion that the words you’re writing have such authority and force your neighbors can hear them being put down.
It's a "what you see is what you get" deal and, for some, that's a very good thing.At first blush, I found typing on the Das Keyboard Model S to be an ego-fulfilling experience. It doesn't require a driver, and in a world of downloadable programs it's nice to have a keyboard that doesn't have stored memory profiles and endlessly customizable keys.
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That said the lack of accompanying customization software is not without its advantages. Try to take the Das Keyboard into a World of Warcraft tournament and I don't think you'd make it past the first round. Without expendable macro keys there's just not enough functionality for most professional gamers. As great as the keys are, there's just not that many of them. If I could associate one word with the Das Keyboard 4, it's uncompromising.Īs much as Das Keyboard would like this to be the first choice for top-tier World of Warcraft and League of Legend players, it likely never will. If that alienates you, you are likely not the demographic the manufacturer is going after. It's a workman's keyboard for those who type frequently and deliberately. Das Keyboard 4 is minimalism in its purest form. There are no macro keys and no thumb keys that allow for changing key mappings on the fly. It's all about those Cherry MX Blue switches For serious, typists
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