Excuse the poor picture, can't find my proper digital camera, so this is a phone shot!

For the past couple of years I've been using notebook keyboards and an external Apple keyboard. Before that, however, I was keen on the Microsoft ergonomic keyboards, as I'd been suffering some pain in my wrists. The Apple keyboard has finally irritated me enough and I decided to see what the options available today were.

Turns out Microsoft finally offer an ergonomic keyboard in USB that's fully compatible with the Mac, the Natural 4000 (I think it might also be called 'Comfort' by some vendors). Compared to the old style ergonomic keyboards it's pretty cool. One curious feature is that there's a big (removable) plastic section under the front of the keyboard so that your wrists sit on the wrist rest and your hands dangle into the typing area. It's a bit weird to start with, but I think I'm getting used to it. Supposedly it makes it even easier to type, and I certainly seem to be pounding away pretty quickly on here so far despite not being used to an ergonomic layout lately.

The Mac / OS X support is pretty good. The driver disc has Mac drivers and tools, so all of the 'special buttons' work. Volume buttons work just like the Apple keyboard ones, the Calculator button launches the calculator, the Mail button launches Apple Mail, etc. Play / Pause controls iTunes as you'd expect. Alt becomes Command / Apple key, and the Start Menu button becomes Alt. It all 'just works'. There are even five programmable buttons that can open to certain folders, open certain applications, or open certain Web pages that you program in. Finally, there's a weird joystick type thing in between the two sets of keys that acts as a 'zoom control'. It works well. In Photoshop you pull it back to zoom out, push it to zoom in, and it all works fine.

The conclusion is.. it's a solid keyboard, built well, feels sturdy, quiet to type on, the keys have the right feel.. ultimately a happy purchase. It's available for circa £30 from eBuyer and so forth. There's a cheaper version without the comfortable wrist pad and a few other doo-wickeys for about £20 too.