Logitech Easy‑Switch K811 Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard for Mac, iPad, iPhone, Apple TV

Whoa – they hit it out of the ballpark with this one
We 15-yr+ Mac users have been screaming for a dang backlit keyboard for years. Word on the street is Steve was about to fire the one Engineering VP that saw that ANY backlit keyboard was kept out of production. This same lady also prevented a backlit keyboard on the first MacBook Airs, most of which were returned for this reason. In fact, the time between the Air-1 and the Air-2 beat all records at Apple of only 3 months because of the non-backlit keyboard issue. Time between full design changes is usually 15 months at Apple.In any event, Steve didn’t last long enough to toss this nepotistic (wife of a board member) idiot before he passed, so she’s still there – and jokes around the office indicate she leads the Apple “Sales Prevention Team”. She fights hi-res screens, backlit keyboards, thin bezels, and connectivity standards to this day.Seeing a huge opportunistic hole in Apple’s marketing arrogance, Logitech quietly built this and had it on the market before anyone at Apple had a clue what they were doing. And as many others have done in the past, they beat Apple at their own game. This keyboard is the latest blockbuster to kick Apple in the but(t).First off it’s designed by Americans, and as usual assembled in China. But Logitech rides herd on the Chinese to force quality assurance – a rare thing indeed. In order to be successful with Asian products nowadays, you’ve got to succeed at both good design and Chinese discipline. Logitech supposedly keeps an American QA engineer on-site, much to the aggravation of the Communist Chinese. The Chinese have an insatiable perversion for plastics, and a financial one for child labor. So to force them to keep to original design specs of aluminum was a real chore, believe me. The Chinese insisted this unit be made of the usual cheap injected plastics, but that was halted early on during initial tooling – and it remained a very high quality CNC’d aluminum. Again to the chagrin of the Chinese. There was even a design for Carbon Fiber, but that was dropped as the prototypes were just too light (and slightly more expensive). In any event that REALLY freaked out the plastics crowd so they settled on aluminum.The designers also put level 10 LEDs in the unit (the best quality diodes available), and put enough light channels and bulbs inside to light it well and uniformly. There’s no dark areas, no gaps. And it’ll go surprisingly bright if you want it to. They also put excellent proximity sensors in various spots on the top of the keyboard to turn on the lights even before you hand touches it. They also have a movement/inertia sensor that turns it on when picked up. The keys are solid, and feel like an Apple keyboard (which of course are mostly un-lit except for the MacBook Pro’s).And to top it all off, they made it rechargeable with a *STANDARD* USB port. They used NiMH instead of NiCads. They brag the battery lasts 10 days of normal use (2-3 hrs/day), but I’ve found it lasts more like 3 weeks – 1 month and I’m a heavy user. It charges in about an hour unless it’s really blinking red, then it’ll take 2-3 hours.If I had a gripe about this unit is it’s size. If you use it in your lap it’s nearly impossible to keep it still while typing. It’s the size of a standard MacBook Pro’s keyboard, but the laptops have enough support around the sides to keep those keyboards still. So I use a laptop board while this unit connects to my iMac. If Logitech would have included a arrow/directional keypad with a numeric keypad, it would lengthen/widen the unit to where you could use it anywhere with stability. And, of course, you’d have a full keyboard as well. They could at least have put a mousepad out there or SOMEthing – anything to lengthen it.But watch – since this thing is selling faster than they can make them, I’ll bet they’ll build extended units with a touchpad and/or a numeric keypad within a few months. And if they can get enough power out of the new wave of solar panels, it may not even need charging once/month. So we’ll watch to see – unlike Apple, one thing Logitech DOES do well is listen to the customer, especially when they comment by the tens of thousands about the same issue. In the meantime, find a desk or a laptop board to accommodate it’s dinky size. But at least it’s BACKLIT, Apple. I’m sitting in a dark room right now and I couldn’t type this without the backlight on this keyboard. The only place you can use a non-backlit keyboard is in a well lit office. I know this infuriates you guys at Apple who are fuming that the customer won, but they’re used to that.Thanks for a superior unit, Logitech. I’m waiting for a longer one, but in the meantime you beat Apple at their own game. I’d give this unit a 6 if Amazon would let me – every now and then a tech gadget comes out that just trumps everything – and this is it

This keyboard is great. Pairing is super easy (for Macs, iOS, Windows and Android), and the easy switch feature is really nice. You can switch between three paired devices, and it only takes about 2 seconds. It pairs better with OS X and iOS devices, but it works with Windows and Android fine too. The connection is always stable. I like the black keys on aluminum base, they have decent travel and their somewhat concave shape makes it great for typing a lot. The backlighting comes in very useful at night. The battery life is super, super long (we’re talking months) and charging is easy, using a Micro USB cable.My two complaints about this keyboard (you have to have some): finger oil gets easily on the keys and it makes them shiny (same problem happens with the MacBook keyboards) and the media controls are lacking (you only get Play/Pause, no Next/Previous Track available).

Lo uso por horas todos los días y funciona de maravilla. Lo único que le falta es botones para “siguiente” y “regresar” – p.ej. “siguiente canción”.

Awesome keyboard. The keys have a nice tactile feel. They’re a bit taller than the normal Apple keys (I have an older macbook pro as well as a macbook pro retina) but that only makes it feel more substantial. The build quality is solid and it looks super sleek. The backlight looks great and even the Logitech logo glows. Overall, I’m very happy with the purchase, though the price was a bit steep considering the K10 is only 80 bucks on amazon (but does not have the Mac keyboard layout which was necessary for me).EDIT: this keyboard’s battery lasts an insanely long!! I’ve charged it twice since receiving it. I use it every day and it’s been over 2 months since the last charge