microsoft sculpt ergonomic keyboard connect to mac

The Good, The Bad, and The VerdictĪfter reading the breakdown of the keyboard’s faults and learning-curve points in the previous section, you might think we’re underwhelmed by it. For those of you who aren’t so geeked out on keyboard mechanism design that you immediately related to the previous statements, rest easy with this summary: the Sculpt keyboard keys have the quiet and compact responsiveness you’d expect on a premium laptop keyboard. The action of the keys is scissor-based, which is a nice compromise between the cheap mushy rubber-dome keys in most low-end keyboards and the crisp mechanical response of older keyboards and modern premium keyboards. If you’re going to use a laptop keyboard space-saving trick, you should stick with the same laptop keyboard convention for accessing the secondary function buttons.įinger placement issues and quirks aside, the keyboard is very pleasant to type on. After decades of using a keyboard key, typically down by the CTRL/ALT keys, to activate the secondary functions, the manual toggle switch feels really kludgy. If you want the blue-highlighted secondary functions, you flip the switch in the opposite direction. If you want F-number keys, you switch it to Fn. For some reason, the Sculpt designers opted to go with an actual physical toggle. It’s the traditional way of doing it and it works well. On just about every keyboard out there that uses the function keys both as actual F-number keys and secondary media (or other control) keys, there is a Fn button that allows you to, with a single keystroke, toggle between the uses.

Overall it’s quite comfortable, and when combined with a keyboard tray that already has negative angle adjustments, it’s like ergonomic heaven. You can increase the negative angle with the included riser (which you place in the front of the keyboard to tilt the keyboard surface further away from you). On top of the wave-like inward angle of the split keys, the keyboard has a slight negative angle that brings your wrists into a slightly draped-forward pose which minimizes stress on your wrists. You’ll feel less like you’re shoving your hands out in front of you like a B-movie robot and much more like you’re resting them naturally in your lap. Placing your hands on the home row of the Sculpt keyboard puts your hands, arms, and shoulders in a much more natural and comfortable alignment. Marketing phrases aside, it certainly works. The Sculpt is designed with what Microsoft calls the “Natural Arc”, which is their marketing phrase for describing the split keyboard and wave-like rise and fall of the keys.

Microsoft sculpt ergonomic keyboard connect to mac