No matter how sophisticated, convenient and stylish input devices the modern electronic industry has given us, it is impossible to imagine a personal computer without a keyboard, and even in the future it will hardly be possible to do without it.
The keyboard is not only the most convenient way of entering text known to mankind (it’s not for nothing that it has hardly changed over more than a hundred years of its existence), but also a lifesaver in cases when other input means suddenly failed. If the tablet does not work or even the mouse fails, the keyboard will always help out, allowing you to somehow shut down, reboot, enter the boot menu and fix the problem with the help of hot keys.
However, choosing a keyboard is also not easy. There are many varieties and models of keyboards, and each has its own advantages: simplicity and reliability (a rare endangered species), stylish design, a wealth of additional functions, and so on. Let's try to understand all this diversity.
First of all, decide what you plan to use the keyboard for. It is clear that, fortunately, all models allow for entering texts. However, modern keyboards can do a lot more.
1. Ergonomic keyboards. Anyone who has tried blind ten-finger input has inevitably noticed that it is inconvenient to twist the hands to correctly position the fingers. Precisely in order to avoid straining your hands in this position, the ergonomic keyboards are divided into two parts, which are set apart at an angle to each other. Having got used to typing blindly on such a keyboard, you will fully appreciate the convenience, and your hands will stop getting tired. However, you will most likely not be able to work on regular keyboards after that. If you often have to work on other people's computers, this can become an unpleasant problem.
2. Gaming keyboards. Designed specifically for the convenience of games - it will not be very comfortable to type texts. Ideally, the "game" keys are placed in a separate block, and the standard keyboard retains the ability to comfortably type on it.
3. Wireless keyboard. Tired that the wire is always confused, gets stuck, or even flies out of the socket? But in the keyboard, and in the first place, the wire breaks out in the places of the most frequent bend. The wireless keyboard is made just for you! The only drawback of this design is reliability. The battery that powers the keyboard always runs out unexpectedly and at the most inopportune moment, and in general there are many more nodes in a wireless system that can fail than in a regular wire.
4. Multimedia keyboards. The functionality of such devices can be very diverse. In the minimal version, we will find on the keyboard control keys for video and audio playback: pause, stop, play. At the maximum - fantastic sets of keys for controlling anything, up to a real musical keyboard "on the back" of a regular keyboard. Well, what if a dormant musical talent suddenly flares up at the sight of just such a keyboard and smites the admiring humanity with a musical masterpiece?
There are also more exotic options. You can choose a flexible keyboard - a sheet of plastic that can not only be rolled up into a tube, but even washed without harm to functionality, or even a virtual one - drawn with a laser beam on any surface, from an ordinary table top to the owner's knees.
