Adam's Images

By ajt

Evil

This is a horrible keyboard. It's horrible for two reasons:

1.  It's a super cheap keyboard, with no travel, no feel and it is as rigid as a jelly. But it has two useful features, in that it's a USB interface so connectable to modern computers, and it's an ISO/FR (old AZERTY) layout
2.  The old AZERTY layout is utterly horrible, and according to the French government one of the reasons that younger French people can't type with accents properly or prefer to use an English keyboard (ANSI/US or ISO/UK). The French government work with a team of people to come up with a revised new AZERTY layout, which makes it much easier to type accented characters and lot easier to find the various things that aren't the basic letters.

I don't use the AZERTY keyboard layout, either old or new because I've used the ISO/UK one most of my life and I'm used to it (except a few years with the ANSI/US layout) and I've got far to use to where certain keys are, and I'd never be able to adapt to the AZERTY layout. I also don't use a full-sized keyboard - so I've no num-pad, and without a num-pad the AZERTY keyboard is unusable if you need to use numbers for more than casual use....!

This keyboard came for free with a scrap computer, and I set it up so my wife can use it, as a French keyboard is more practical for her, even if it's a horrible one. Thankfully she doesn't have to use it that often, and hasn't complained. I'd buy her a proper keyboard if she wanted one, but she hasn't asked - I don't know if you can get any new AZERTY keyboards yet, I know they are made, but I suspect that most will stay with the old-layout or an English one - all the gaming keyboards I see in the supermarkets are either American (ANSI) or English (ISO)...

I call them gaming keyboards, because they are designed to look like a properly mechanical keyboard, and have lots of flashy lights, but often aren't actually good keyboards or specifically good for games either...!

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