T
he problem with having a PC in your living room is simple. It’s the
mouse. Mousing on the couch is a royal pain in the ass. Resting your
mouse hand on your leg, on a couch arm, or on one of your couch buddies
just doesn’t work. That’s why we were excited to see that Microsoft’s new
living-room keyboards ship with an integrated mousing surface. We just
didn’t understand why the company also included a wireless mouse.
The answer became clear after a few moments with this keyboard.
The mousing area just doesn’t work particularly well. Set it at a slow
enough speed to be accurate and reliable, and it takes forever to navigate
the screen. Set it fast enough to zip from side to side, and it’s very twitchy.
We couldn’t find a happy medium.
The pad does include a few nifty tricks, though. Flip a switch above it,
and it changes to D-pad mode, which is good (although slightly twitchy) for
navigating through the Media Center interface. We also really dig the fact that in
mouse mode the mouse buttons are located on the far side of the keyboard, so
you move the cursor with one thumb but click with the other. Were the mouse
surface slightly better tuned, it would have been a perfect design.
The keyboard’s layout is a little goofy; the home keys are off center,
and the entire keyboard is slightly warped. It’s not a major problem, since we
figure you’ll use this keyboard more for typing URLs and instant messages
than for banging out your first novel.
The placement of the media keys is excellent, and eminently useful,
whether you’re using Media Center or just iTunes, and we especially like the
inclusion of dedicated buttons that open Media Center and the Windows menu.
We’re still annoyed by the presence of proprietary keys—like the Windows
Messenger Live call button on this board—but they’re easily reprogrammed to
serve other functions. The mouse is a decent rechargeable.
If Microsoft improves the performance of the mouse surface and
ditches the then-unnecessary mouse, this could be a killer living-
room keyboard.
—Will SmithMicrosoft Entertainment
Desktop 7000
Is this the perfect media center lapboard? No
I
t’s happened to all of us: In the midst of a heated deathmatch, while you’re
desperately circle-strafing your opponent, you both run out of ammo simul-
taneously. Unfortunately, when you press your Reload button, your keyboard
locks up due to too many simultaneous key presses. Then you die.
Razer’s new Tarantula keyboard won’t lock up under duress. In our
tests, we were able to press 10 buttons simultaneously without hanging the
keyboard. Naturally, this gives hardcore shooter and RTS players a serious
advantage. On the other hand, if you don’t encounter constant lockups, you
probably won’t notice a difference between this plank and any other.
The Tarantula also includes a variety of programmable buttons suit-
able for media playback and in-game macros. The included software for
programming macros is extremely difficult to use and challenging to adjust
on the fly. We would much prefer software that lets you create macros in-
game by pressing the appropriate keys on the keyboard rather than manu-
ally entering key presses and timing information outside the game.
However, we love the addition of headphone- and mic-in ports on
the back of the keyboard, as well as a two-port USB hub. The keyboard
even draws power from two USB ports, so it works with devices that don’t
necessarily like unpowered USB hubs. We’re intrigued by the possibility of
Tarantula-specific accessories (they’ll connect to a special mini-USB port
on the top of the keyboard)—Razer has demonstrated a light that would be
great for late-night gaming.
There are a few problems with the Tarantula though. The keyboard
uses a slightly modified layout and places two columns of macro keys
on either side of the main typing area, which caused some miskeys.
Additionally, the block of keys that normally houses Home, Insert, Delete,
and End is arranged in a nonstandard and annoying way.
Finally, there’s the price. At $130, the Tarantula costs as much as a
great wireless keyboard and four times what other wired key-
boards cost. That just seems
like a lot to us.
—Will SmithRazer Tarantula
Wow, that’s CEAWFJM awesome!
the tarantula offers great performance and some interesting
features, but unfortunately, it’s stupid expensive.8
razer tarantula
$130, http://www.razerzone.com7
ms entertainment 7000
$150, http://www.microsoft.comthis keyboard-and-mouse double whammy is designed to fit
right into your media center.april 2007 MAXIMUMPC