Published: December 1, 2008 | Source: Keysonic | Author: James Napier

Keysonic ACK-612 RF Wireless Multimedia Keyboard

Packaging & Appearance

With the ACK-612 RF being aimed largely at HTPC owners and Office environments it’s certainly no surprise that Keysonic have kept the design of the packaging plain and inoffensive. The combination of red and white along with a clear plastic window feels quite PC World-ish and strangely gives little focus to some of the keyboards biggest features such as its touch-pad and wireless connectivity.

Around the back of the packaging, Keysonic have thankfully gone into greater detail, displaying a full image of the keyboard along with a specifications list in three European languages. Also present are several feature icons that show the keyboard as being Vista ready, Easy to install and Wireless among other things.

Opening up the box you are presented with the keyboard contained within a polythene bag, a driver CD, instruction manual, USB dongle and a pack of four Energizer AAA batteries. It’s quite good to see that Keysonic have included everything to get you up and running and haven’t even tried to cut costs by bundling in a set of cheap-o generic batteries.

Measuring in at around 36cm wide, the ACK-612 RF is indeed quite compact. Maybe not quite compact enough to lose down the back of the sofa (which is a good thing!), but on-par with a laptop keyboard in terms of key size and spacing.

The main body of the keyboard has a rubber-like texture that makes the keyboard slightly more comfortable to use than if it were hard plastic, but the keys themselves are fairly standard. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as rubberised keys have a tendency to wear out quite quickly and often leave keyboards looking shabby.

At the top of the keyboard are a total of 11 hot-keys. Most of the hot-keys have fixed functions such as Play/Pause/Back/Forward and Volume control, however four of the keys labelled H1-4 can be programmed to perform other tasks by the Keysonic software.

The touch-pad is very much like those found on laptops but is inset slightly and features a brushed aluminium surround that extends to the left/right mouse keys. Just above the touch-pad are two switches that have the ability to enable/disable touch-pad and keyboard functionality. This is great if you have kids, as it prevents them from running riot on your HTPC if they manage to get their hands on the keyboard.