Design
Unveiled alongside a matching mouse, digital camera and camcorder, the EZ Type Keyboard is a multicoloured slice of plastic cornucopia. While this keyboard is designed to be for children over three years of age, there is no doubt that it can easily elicit squeals of delight from those who are still children at heart. With its vivacious colour scheme and wide, broad keys, it's most definitely going to challenge your ideas of quirky tech.
Be the coolest kid in the playground with the rainbow-coloured EZ Type Keyboard.
(Credit: Crayola)
The configuration is in the standard QWERTY format so nothing deviates too much from a conventional keyboard, except that there is no number pad present. Neither is there a set of function keys. Connecting via USB, even the plug doesn't forego the coloured treatment, resplendent in light mauve. The keyboard is plug and play, requiring no driver installation on Windows 98SE, 2000, Me, XP, Vista or Mac OS X 10.1 or later.
Alongside the curiously large layout is the biggest escape key we have ever seen. Unfortunately, pressing it doesn't automatically launch any sort of escape pod or magical event. We were also disappointed to find that the arrow keys didn't automatically turn your text into the same colour of the crayon that bedecks it, though this is a minor and relatively trivial gripe.
Features and performance
On the packaging there is no indication of whether the keyboard is spill proof or resistant to ice cream, chocolate, milk or a myriad of other childhood vices. The packaging does, however, purport that the larger keys make for easier typing. While smaller hands may find the big characters and keys easier to hit with one finger, the average adult, used to typing on a cramped keyboard, will find the practice rather disconcerting — at first.
After a while your fingers do adjust to stretching a little further than usual but most of the time you do have to watch the keyboard as you type. Over the course of an hour or so, you learn where the keys are roughly located and adapt your typing accordingly, but the process is not intuitive.
The responsiveness provided by the keys is also not that great, with keys being hard to press. That said, we do like the typeface on the keys — Comic Sans — providing some typographic chic circa 1997.
Conclusion
For a relatively affordable price of AU$49.95, the Crayola EZ Type Keyboard will inject a splash of fun into your (or your child's) day. It's probably not the best keyboard to use if you are accustomed to touch typing, but then again most children in the target market for this keyboard probably won't be proficient typists anyway. Oh, and we apologise for any errors in typing in this review, as it was written on the EZ Type Keyboard.
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