Flexiglow Illuminated Multimedia Keyboard

It should be a heavenly fusion of beauty and function.

Flexiglow Illuminated Multimedia Keyboard



To properly immerse oneself in a proper computing state of consciousness, one must turn out the lights. For gaming it is especially so. To then find, accurately and quickly, say, the ‘K’ key right in the middle of a WASD firefight is asking for trouble. Chatting online in the wee hours, when the lights are mood-dark is equally troublesome. Miss a key here or there and your online buddies in #partygeeks will think you’re drunk, or worse.

The number of times we have needed this product must number in the millions. To us, it is amazing that *all* keyboards are *not* illuminated. Apple understand. Its iBook has a glowy keyboard and every PC laptop is jealous. Logitech and Saitek both have glowy keyboards, but we are still waiting on review units to arrive for testing. Flexiglow also have another model, the xRaider, but that model is being discontinued.

But right now we do have the Flexiglow Illuminated Multimedia Keyboard and have been working hard for the last week.

If it didn’t glow, it would be worthless. This is not a nice keyboard to use if you do any amount of writing. The keys are small and flat with very little movement. The backspace key is tiny and buried amid other keys, not positioned at the top right corner as it should be. The space bar is too short and the function keys are not separated into groups, as we like them. In short, this keyboard is a hindrance if you’re a writer or gamer.

But, it glows. Quite nicely. Beneath the keys there’s a slab of clear plastic, beneath that is electro-luminescent wiring. The glow is even across the keyboard and perhaps explains why the keys are laid our in a perfect rectangle. Lighting separate cursor and function keys was, perhaps, too expensive or difficult. That tradeoff, unfortunately, tips the scales for this keyboard. It looks terrific but is a fiddle to use.

A shame. The lighting is quite lovely. Not so bright that it distracts your gaze from the monitor, but bright enough to make the keys comfortably visible. Ironically, even with the lighting switched off the keyboard is still perfectly visible in all but the darkest rooms. The translucent white keys are easy enough to see with the benefit of even the dimmest monitor illumination.

But, it glows. We liked that a lot. We live in hope that the full-sized xRaider adds ergonomics to the big aesthetics win. Now, would all keyboard manufacturers kindly start making everything illuminated.