I rarely buy keyboards, my last one that I actually liked I stuck with for about four years - it was one I bought for under a fiver at a computer show, and it worked great and typed great. As time went by though the spacebar worked loose and the wires at the back got threaded.

So I bought a new one, a USB one and it was awful, felt wrong and crashed a lot of games. So, I ended up with this one.

I bought this one for a number of reasons.

1)It's clicky.

I hate cheap keyboards with rubberised undersides and a thin membrane sensor for the keys. I like my keys to have a lot of travel, be firm, and click when you press them. That reduces the chances of you hitting the wrong key by accident, and keeps them comfortable on your fingers.

Those who type a lot on laptops, or who have weaker fingers may not like this keyboard, it is very stiff, but for me, it's perfect.

2)It is PS2.

I hate USB keyboards. These days there are two choices for keyboards - USB, the standard for just about every connection, from printer, to game pads, everything. Then theres PS2 - the standard for keyboards and mice.

PS2 is slightly older as a standard than USB, but personally I prefer it. There are lots of problems with USB devices under certain versions of windows, and also with certain games. I ran some USB keyboards for a while and they caused massive problems. For mice, I use it, since optical mice tend to perform better with it. For keyboards I'll stick to the old fashioned way thank you very much!

3)It's got all the keys in the right place and the right size.

I grew up with a keyboard that had the backspace key above the enter key, and about the same size as the top bit of the enter key, with another key on top (in other words really long). If I ever use a keyboard that has a short backspace key, I quickly go insane and discover how often I actually need to call on that key!

The backspace key on this keyboard is nice and long, so its always right where my finger wants it to be.

This keyboard has the usual numeric keypad, and then separate inserd, home del, end, etc keys.

They're arranged like this:

Print Scr Scroll Lock Pause/Break

INS HOME PG UP DEL END PG DOWN

This layout is important to me, as I play an online game where I need to hit some of those keys frequently, and without having to look at the keyboard. On many keyboard the row with the scroll lock key on it gets in the way, being either directly above or below the others. On this keybaord it's on the same row as the function keys, so theres a nice big gap.

They're the main reasons I chose this keyboard, but there are other things about it that are worth commenting on.

Firstly, it is MASSIVE. Theres a lot of space around the arrow keys, and between the keyboard and the numeric keypad. Also theres a a gap between the main keyboard and the function keys, then between the function keys and the boards own special keys, which I will comment on later.

The keyboard itself is beige, and has a dark grey wrist rest that sticks out of the bottom, and is also huge, but thankfully detatchable. The lights for caps / num lock / scroll lock are large and noticeable.

I've left it on since I've got plenty of space, but even if you take it off, if you're using a normal keyboard tray on a small computer desk you might have trouble finding space for this beast.

This keyboard has follwed the trend of having 'special' keys - in this case there are seven above the function keys, and three above the numeric keypad.

The ones above the function keys are web related - hence this being an 'internet' keyboard - you get Back, Forward, Stop, Mail, Search, Favorites and Web/Home. Above the numeric keypad you get My Computer, Calculator and Sleep.

I hate these buttons to be honest - the way I use my computer at the moment I reach over the keyboard to use the mouse. Yes, this is bad for posture, and will change soon when I fit my new desk, but it's the way I have to right now. Even when I'm not having to do that, I rest books against the edge of my keyboard. With a normal keyboard that's easy to do, with this, I'm forever starting my web browser by accident.

Unfortunately most of the stuff on there can easily be done with a shortcut key that already exists, or could easily be set up - are people really so lazy these days that they'd rather have third party software on their machine that purely serves the function of allowing them to press one key instead of two?

Thankfully, the drivers that come with the keyboard do allow you to reconfigure the buttons to do something more useful. Disabling them seems more flakey, as I keep doing that and they keep mysteriously turning themselves back on.

When it comes to cleaning the keys come off pretty easily to allow access to the insides, and also re-attach without difficulty or loss of springiness, so top marks there.

This is a nice keyboard, its good quality, nice to type on, and comfortable. It does have one drawback for games though.

There's a standard for keyboard wiring that most keyboards don't adhere to these days, but that games are designed for. When you're driving sometimes you want to accellerate, break and turn at the same time for a split second. When you're playing an FPS sometimes you want to jump, move forward, and turn, things like that.

Try this on your keyboard now:

Open up notepad, and then press the 'w' key and the 'd' key at the same time. Hold them down for a few seconds, then press the 'x' key as well.

What happened? If the 'x' shows up and starts repeating, maybe with some of the other keys, maybe not, then your keyboard is fine. If windows beeps at you, or all the input stops, then you have a problem.

Depending on what keys you define you can usually get away without any problems, but there are a lot of combos like that which don't work, and some of them do get in the way in games.

I'm not suprised to see microsoft break an ancient standard though, it's just like them to try to make rules that aren't as good as the ones in place already.

Ok, I'm ranting now aren't I.

In balance, this is a good keyboard. If your existing one is working though then there's no reason to upgrade to this one. Extra flashy buttons won't really enhance your computing experience.

I'd recommend this to anyone in the market for a new keyboard who happens to have the desk space for it, but at the same time, I'd also recommend checking out some of the cheaper keyboards in markets and computer fairs. If you see one being demonstrated, do the test I just described, and also check out how the keys feel in use.

Your finger and wrist health are at risk when using a keyboard, so the most important thing is that it feels good for you. The second most important thing is that it doesn't crash your computer or degrade its performance. All I can really assure you of is that I've had few problems other than not being able to hold three keys down at once.

The rest is for you to test and decide.