Rapoo 5G Wireless Illuminated Keyboard Black

Comment:
Been looking for a keyboard multitouch combo for a while. The Logitech media board is pretty close to what I was looking for, but the unifying receiver that it uses works on the already crowded 2.4 GHz wavelength. Also it uses batteries that need to be removed and recharged. There are several other combo boards available(many by Rapoo), but they are not full sized and are meant as small HTPC boards.The Rapoo E9090P is the first full size board that had all the features I was looking for. It is a keyboard with full sized keys and a 3/4 sized keyboard design. The keys are scissor keys which makes them very responsive and "clicky". It has a full F-key setup with built in media and application functions. The keys have two illumination settings, though there is very little difference between them. The keys are not however evenly lit as the lower keys have a stronger illumination. Overall though they are plenty bright in a dark room.The touchpad is a multi touch pad with several built in gestures for Windows 8. The drivers and software are available online that allow you to change the gestures and function key assignment. The software is easy enough and allows you to open applications with different gestures as well. The touchpad is a fairly smooth material that allows easy movement across it and responds well. Precise selection and clicking is a little lacking, especially since there are no clicking buttons under the touchpad like Apples Magic touchpad. This means you need to move the cursor where you want to click and then lift your finger and tap, sometimes causing the cursor to move slightly. There are designated click areas at the bottom of the trackpad which can prevent this, but a clicking touchpad would have been easier.The build of the keyboard is nice, using brushed aluminum for the body. However this aluminum can be prone to bending so be careful putting it into a backpack. The keyboard uses a lithium battery which can be wirelessly charged by putting the keyboard over a small charging pad. This is a really nice feature as it makes charging simple and doesn't require you to remove the batteries to charge, allowing you to continue using it while charging. The lithium battery and aluminum body make it a bit heavy, but not bad. It connects to the computer using a 5 GHz receiver that plugs into USB. This allows the keyboard and touch pad to function even during startup, which is nice when you need to do bios changes or have a multi boot environment. It's the trade off you take with it not being Bluetooth. Overall I am very happy with this keyboard touchpad combo. I'd never heard of Rapoo before, but I'm sure glad I found this product. If you want an Apple keyboard/touchpad combo for half the price and are using Windows or Linux, I highly suggest you take a look at this.

Comment:
I have no issues with the trackpad acting oddly. just takes a bit to realize the buttons are at the bottom. backlit keyboard is great!

Comment:
Now the keyboard/typing on this thing is fine and the wireless charging works. It's built well and looks fantastic. But if you bought this thing or are considering it it's because you want a touchpad and let me tell you the one on this is unusable. As you slide your finger smoothly across the touchpad you can watch the cursor on screen do anything but match the smooth slide - it jumps. You can successfully get rid of physical left/right keys and go gesture based, it's been done before and I've used products like this but this keyboard does a horrible job at trying. It might be usable with physical keys but as it depends on gestures for everything it's extreme and intermittent sensitivity makes it impossible. You'll struggle to drag and drop  a file, and you'll absolutely drag and drop  a file when not intending to. I tried installing the drivers and app from the rapoo website and it did nothing. The only setting I could think of that might help with this keyboard would be a touchpad sensitivity feature like you'll find on some laptops. As it's rather new I couldn't find reviews on this model before buying but now that I search for this specific issue I see the similar 9080 model suffering from the exact same complaints. So I'm reluctant to exchange this unit for another as it sounds like an issue with design/manufacturing.I honestly want to love this keyboard. Its looks, build, price, featureset are all amazing. But I just can't love it due to the touchpad. Unfortunately without being able to return it for a credit to buy something else this thing will be sitting collecting dust. I'll go back to the entry level Logitech wireless keyboard/touchpad I previously used that cost half this much.