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Flexiglow Illuminated Keyboard

Posted by timothy on from the you-thought-fake-barf-was-novel dept.

BigMan writes "You probably have seen a few of these keyboards (illuminated) before but this one is from Flexiglow who are known for making very nice modd products. We will look closer into this and see how bright it really is and if it's nice to type on and use."

13 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. Thank you Flexiglow for making this review possibl by DAldredge · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Thank you Flexiglow for making this review possible" is at the bottom of the first page, is there any wonder they gave the unit a 5 out of 5?

  2. Re:How often do you look at you keyboard? by NotAnotherReboot · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I concur...on top of that, do you really want your keyboard distracting you if you don't ever look at it? On top of that, even if you did need to look down from time to time, the only time you wouldn't be able to see it is at night (and even then, your monitor would probably illuminate it enough).

    You shouldn't be using a computer in the dark anyways, the contrast between the sceen and the wall is far too high. It hurts your vision.

  3. I like these... by Cyno01 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've been drooling over EL keyboards ever since i saw the EluminX, and will probably get a knockoff for my next system, but when is somone going to make a full keyboard. By full i mean a seperate block for the arrow keys, the 3x2 block of insert/home/delete etc. and a little seperation betweek the main section and the F keys. It sucks for gaming having the arrow keys in with everything else.

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    1. Re:I like these... by smallfries · · Score: 2, Interesting

      These do look nice, but the killer feature on a keyboard for me would be a built in trackball somewhere near the middle of the main key area. The reason that I avoid using the mouse a lot is that the latency of getting my hands from over the main keys to the mouse and back is so high, having a trackball under a thumb would be ideal.

      I saw one (can't remember the name or link) once that had an oversized space-bar with a trackball in it but it was ps/2 and only had windows drivers. Ahh to dream of such a beast that would work under linux....

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  4. Re:How often do you look at you keyboard? by P-Nuts · · Score: 5, Interesting
    You shouldn't be using a computer in the dark anyways, the contrast between the sceen and the wall is far too high. It hurts your vision.

    You're clearly not a true geek.

  5. Programmable glowing keyboards... by Aphrika · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Slightly off topic, but I remember hearing about the Apple TiBook 17" having a keyboard which glowed different colours for various alerts.

    Has anyone ever come across any programmables keyboards or USB devices which change colour? Something like the Mathmos Aduki would be cool if you could use it as a pervasive computing device. Do they exist, did I dream about them, or am I going to have to build my own?

  6. Apple does a much better job of this. by MisterLawyer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Their 15 and 17 inch Powerbooks have fiber optic backlit keyboards.

    From the Apple website:
    Futuristic Backlit Keyboard:
    The 17-inch PowerBook features a fiber optic backlit keyboard that's right out of the future. Built-in light sensors automatically adjust the keyboard illumination and your screen's brightness based on the available ambient light.

  7. it would be cool.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    to inverse it so only have the symbols are glowing and not the whole key.

    or make every button programmable, so it could be used as an audio spectrum visualisation or something.

    1. Re:it would be cool.. by TeknoHog · · Score: 4, Interesting
      make every button programmable, so it could be used as an audio spectrum visualisation or something.

      I agree this would be awesome. Also, a program to teach touch typing might use this to illuminate a key you need to find, thus you'd more easily find and learn the positions of keys.

      In fact many many programs would benefit if they could illuminate the keys used at any moment. I'm sure this is already done in touchscreen systems. Then again, a programmably illuminated keyboard is a kind of touchscreen in itself. If it were available, I'm sure someone could hack it into a display console of some kind. For example, you could pipe text into it by illuminating letters in succession.

      However, as a touch typist and a Discordian I don't want anything of the Illuminati kind on my desk ;-)

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  8. Why blue? by Sarojin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Studies have shown that blue is the colour the human eyes are the least able to focus on. I assume the reason that this keyboard is illuminated is so that you can see the letters (not for touch typists), so choosing pretty much any other colour would have been better. As well, different colours of EL-wire cost no more than blue :/

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  9. Re:Dunno about you guys... by SuperBanana · · Score: 2, Interesting
    but I have issues with articles which are sponsored by the item being reviewed

    You just described 99.5% of the "hardware review" sites. If it's not freebies, it's "we'd like it back but we won't ever call to find out why you never returned it". If not that, it's "if you don't say something nice about product X, you won't get to review anything from us again".

    My favorite are the sites which claim they "return everything they review". Says who? Like they wouldn't lie about it. Like the manufacturers wouldn't lie about it. Maybe they're just getting paid cash instead. Every single site also sells advertisements for everything they review; why, look at these guys...there's an ad for the keyboard from one of the billion useless-PC-mods stores right there on the same page.

    Magazines aren't any different. I once spoke to a gent who makes automotive software, and a certain car magazine said they'd put him in the "editor's gadgets pick", if he bought 10,000 reprints (and they turned out to be hideously expensive per-page) AND he had to take out a 6 issue advertisement contract. They got him coming, staying, and going.

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  10. Where are the RED ones, dammit?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Illuminex have been promising those for years and we still don't have them. Flexiglow doesn't have them either. In fact their's look like Auravision's ElumineX keyboards (refer ThinkGeek) ! I'd buy a bunch of these for my observatory; most observatories would find them useful (so long as you can adjust the brightness), and it would probably be a nice little niche market for whomever ships them first. So come on illuminated keyboard manufacturers -- we want red!

  11. Re:How often do you look at you keyboard? by superyooser · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If you have an optical mouse, you can lift it up and use it as a flashlight to see something. Of course, it's not nearly as nifty as that USB light.