Model: Macally IceKey
Mechanism: Pantograph Scissor Switch
Cost: $43
Other Features: Apple layout. Volume/Eject Keys. Built-in USB 2 port USB hub.
Last Updated: May 22, 2006
I saw this keyboard under a different brand when I was in Japan, so I assume its re-branded from an OEM.

Key Switches and Tops

This keyboard uses the switches that are commonly found in laptops, but the keyboard itself has a desktop form factor. While not a unique trait, there are very few other Apple keyboards with this characteristic. The feel of the keys can be described as very crisp, but a little stiff. I have to agree with a another review I read somewhere about this keyboard in saying that it’s a bit too stiff for my tastes. You want a certain amount of stiffness to support your resting fingers while you’re not typing, and also to help push your fingers back after you’ve pressed a key, but you also want to minimize the effort when you actually want to press something down.
The key tops are ever so slightly concave, but not definitely not as concave as the PowerBook G4’s keyboard. The keycaps seems to be of the same size and shape across the entire board, except that the F-keys are about half-height.

Looks and Layout

My first impresion was that the overall design is so-so. The keys are Apple-esque solid white, and the base, while not prominent, is a slightly more glossier plastic. In general, I like the appearance of the standard Apple keyboards better.
The layout is very similar to a standard issue Apple full size keyboard, with a few twists. The most bizarre one is that to the right of the right control key, there is a blank key. This key has it’s own switch, but pressing it does not register any keystroke. Perhaps this keyboard was adapted to be an Apple keyboard from a different OEM design?
Another small difference is that the left option key is smaller than the control and command keys. This seems somewhat arbitrary and annoying, since the option key is a pretty commonly used modifier, and there’s no reason for it to be smaller than the others, especially given the presence of the aforementioned wasted key at the right end of the same row.
As mentioned above, the F-keys are all half-height. I’m not sure why they decided to make them smaller, but the choice mimics the PowerBook keyboard. While it is nice that the escape key is right above the tilde, it’s smaller size (along with all the F-keys) seems un-necessary. It is an external keyboard after all. It’s not like they saved much space by making them smaller. It just makes them slightly harder to hit.

Other notes

One thing I do like about the iceKey is that because the keytravel is shorter, the entire keyboard lies flatter with the surface that it’s on. For someone like me who has the bad habit of resting his wrists on the surface in front of the keyboard while he types, its nice not to have to bend your wrists so far back as other keyboards. This seems to make a pretty big difference after a long day of typing, even when compared to using standard keyboards along with a wrist-rest. In fact, this keyboard seems to be one of the exteremely rare non-ergo keyboards that I can use for long periods without having my hands hurt.
I thought I would find the USB ports in the keyboard handy, but in my situation, it turned out that my cable mess just got worse. The ports make sense for wired mice, but if you use a wireless mouse like me, having a chord coming form the PC to the keyboard, and then having another chord going from the keyboard back to the back of the desk (for the wireless receiver) just seems stupid. I ended up buying one of those tiny hubs that I can plug both the keyboard and the mouse into, and then I plug the hub into one of my PowerBook’s slots.
The other reason to use the USB ports would be for a flash card reader, or some other device that you only needed to have connected temporarily, and one that you didn’t want to reach all the way over to your PC or laptop to hookup. The IceKey unfortunately only has USB 1.1 ports, so performance of these device suffers greatly. The ports, therefore, are only really useful for low-bandwidth, input devices.

Final words

In general, if I compare it to other laptop keys that I like (namely the Powebook keyboard and the IBM keyboard) I must say i like this one the least. The Powerbook keyboard’s keys have a nicer surface and aren’t as stiff. The IBM keys are a little bit more meaty and also not as stiff (my friend Johnvey has a IBM-laptop-keys-for-a-desktop-keyboard style keyboard, which I prefer feel-wise to the iceKey, though that one doesn’t have all the special Mac buttons.
The one saving grace is that this keyboard is much cheaper than the other keyboard enthusiast-oriented keyboards out there. It came out to just over $40 bucks, so if you’re looking for a better-than-average experience while staying under the $50 mark, then this keyboard fits the bill.