This week’s keyboard review is by Jane Davis, a Swedish and French to English translator. Jane is reporting on her favourite keyboard, the lite-price, lightweight Rapoo E9070. Might it be the perfect keyboard for you too?

1. Keyboard make, model and price:

For the last couple of years I’ve been using a Rapoo E9070 ultra-slim wireless keyboard. This retails for about 30 euros.

2. Description:

As you’d assume from the name, it’s a slim keyboard, and also extremely neat in terms of other dimensions:

W x L x D: 10.92 cm x 33.90 cm x 0.56 cm

Weight: 310 g

The batteries are inserted into a channel concealed in the back of the keyboard, and the official battery life is 24 months. The battery channel also has an ON/OFF switch for the keyboard and contains a slot where you can insert the USB dongle when you’re travelling.

The keyboard is apparently compatible with both Windows and Mac, though I’ve not tested the latter.

3. My last keyboard was…

… some generic thing, wireless but bulkier and with more resistance in the keys which gave me finger and shoulder pain if I had to use it for prolonged periods. Actually, this isn’t strictly correct – my last keyboard was another Rapoo E9070, also in white. It was still working but I replaced it after about 18 months because it got so grubby! At this price, why not?

4. Why I changed to the Rapoo E9070:

When I realised that my previous keyboard was causing me pain, I specifically went out and looked for a keyboard with an action as similar to a laptop keyboard as possible. I find that the small travel of laptop keys means my fingers can skim over the keyboard with less effort. And yet, as with a good quality laptop keyboard, the keys on this Rapoo keyboard have a nice, definite action. It’s also not completely flat, which is something I find tiring in a real laptop, but has a bit of a rake to make it more comfortable. It’s not completely silent, but makes a pleasing rustling noise as you type – again, like a laptop keyboard.

5. What I love about my keyboard:

What I primarily love about this keyboard is the neat dimensions. Take the length for example. Yes, that really is only just over 30 cm long, or about the length of a standard desk ruler. So there’s no reaching to get strange key combinations, and your mouse isn’t far away. And yet it’s not a cramped layout; it has a full sized numerical keypad and all the keys you’d normally expect, including two Ctrl keys, a Windows key, cursor keys, function keys and a large Enter key – some or all of which are often missing or reduced on compact keyboards.

It also has the usual ridges to locate the F and J keys, and a range of media keys along the top row. I never use these latter, but having now experimented with them for this review I may start doing so!

6. What I dislike about this keyboard:

The only thing I dislike about the keyboard is that it periodically chews batteries – but I think this is my own fault. As I said above, the official battery life is 24 months; I use rechargeable batteries and some of these are now getting on for 12 years old, so they don’t exactly hold their charge. This means that occasionally I replace the batteries twice within a week (and then forget which ones are the duds, recharge them and do the same thing again several months later…)

7. Other comments:

One final piece of advice: the white version is nice if you’re not a touch typist, because you can see which key is where even in fairly gloomy conditions. However, if like me you a) often eat at your desk and b) tend to be a bit of a messy eater, it might be wise to go for the black version of the keyboard. Either that or be prepared to replace it every few months!

Jane Davis is a Swedish-English and French-English translator and English proofreader/editor, originally from the UK and now based in Sweden. She specialises in archaeology/history and construction, and more particularly in producing stylish, clear English text. On the odd occasion when she’s not working she can usually be found stalking either people (street photography) or film canisters (geocaching).

Over to you

If you use the Rapoo E9070 keyboard, like or dislike it, or have any questions about it, please leave a comment below.

Want to write about another keyboard? Check out this introductory post to the Keyboard Corner!