Hopefully it will help you choose a concept that would be better for you. We will help you to decide whether it is better to have a medium size keyboard and a mouse or to have a mini-keyboard with a joystick built in.
Appearance
6301URF (Keyboard + Mouse)
A usual not big keyboard is made of grey plastic with black buttons on it. This keyboard measures 460 x 175 x 20.5 mm which means that it has a full collection of usual buttons and some multimedia buttons. It has 104 standard buttons and 11 additional ones. It is slim and you can easily type on holding it on your knees. The design is modern: straight long lines but no sharp edges. This is what is fashionable today.
The buttons are usual size so that makes it very comfortable for those who are used to a big home keyboard. Moreover, it has a number pad which is very important for some of us who need to calculate or fill in some tables very often.
The mouse is made in black color and has grey buttons and some grey stripes on the sides. The scroll wheel is made of rubber so your finger will not slip while scrolling.
9116URF (Joystick keyboard)
Mini Wireless Internet and Gaming Keyboard (That's how they called it) - Small portable keyboard with built in joystick is what you need if you are going to carry it around a lot. What they did is they have cut off the number pad and made a usual keyboard wireless. Taking away the number pad they have made some letter numbers work as a number pad when you need it. Oh, one more thing they have put a joystick in one of its corners to emulate mouse or to serve as a joystick in games.
The keyboard comes in two colors: black and white however I think that black would match the home atmosphere better. Saying small we did not mention its exact size; it is 300 x 160 x 40 mm. It has some special edges on its sides so you can take and hold the keyboard while playing or transporting it. It is comfortable but those edges are small.
Comparison
- Size
The size plays a big role for the wireless keyboard. I wouldn't carry my big but comfortable wired keyboard because it is simply too big. However, these two keyboards are smaller then usual and it is up to you to decide which is really for you.
Choose from having a smaller size but thicker 9116URF or having a thin but a bit bigger keyboard like 6301URF.
6301 model is comfortable to work with it both on the table and on your knees. The 9116 model is not that comfortable to work with on the table. If you are going to use it more on the table and not taking it with you on the sofa you would rather want the 6301 one. - Keys
As we mentioned 6301 has number pad and it has obviously more keys then the 9116 one however this is not the most important thing. The important things are the size and the way the buttons are pushed.
The buttons on the both keyboards are normal size and it will not take you long to get used to typing on the keyboards. However, some buttons on the 9116 model are smaller then the usual ones and you might miss them when typing fast. Besides, the additional keys on that keyboard are small and it will be hard to find them in dark.
On a good keyboard the keys need to work softly and to be pressed easily. The 6301 model has very good keys and they are pressed very softly. Therefore the keys are silent and they will not disturb anybody else in the room. The keys on the 9116 model are not so soft and they produce some noise when typing however it is not very loud.
None of the keyboards has LED indicators for Num lock, Caps Lock or Scroll lock but that is what you have to pay for a wireless product.
- Connection
It is somewhat weird but they used an old fashion radio connection for these keyboards. Moreover, the connections are different quality on these two keyboards.
First of all I would like to talk about the range of work. The 6301 model has a 2.5 meters range as it says on the box; however, on the fully charged batteries it worked from up to 3 meters away. And the keys worked fine and there was not missed keys when we where typing.
Different situation with the 9116 model; it has a range of 5-7 meters which is not bad. However, there is one problem with this keyboard if you type fast. Some keystrokes will not actually get to the receiver and there will be some letters missed. This thing will not happen with your 6301 model. - Joystick or Mouse
This is the question of very many people. We will describe both of them.
The Mouse
The mouse that comes with the 6301 model is a medium wireless mouse. It has some flaws and you cannot call it perfect. First of all, the scroll wheel is situated not very comfortably and the mouse is not big. I would say it is small, and the batteries are placed in its back so it overweighs the back part of it while the front par is very light. The cap that covers the batteries is black and it is polished so you will se small scratches after several weeks of use. However, the two main buttons are very good and there will be no accidental clicks which is a good thing.
The Joystick
Joystick is actually a good thing because you do not have to have an additional device as a mouse. However, the quality of the joystick is not very high. It can emulate the mouse movements and it can work as a joystick in games. To switch the mode of work you need to push: Fn+F12 (Joystick mode) or Fn+F11 (Mouse mode). We have tried several games however I think that the joystick is not suitable for any of them.
On the upper left corner there are two buttons that present the two buttons of the mouse. You can take and hold the keyboard like a PS3 joystick and play the games you like. I think that it is not really comfortable to do that.
The other disadvantage that the joystick has is the movement speed. It has 8 stages of cursor movement speed; if you lean the joystick more the speed increases. However, it takes the cursor 5 seconds to cross the 1280 x 1024 pixels monitor on the highest speed, which is way too long for me. My opinion is that this joystick will not replace any mouse even the really bad one so I would rather prefer a mouse.
In conclusion I would like to say that I would rather prefer the 6301URF from BTC. However, the 9116 has its own advantages like no need for a mouse and portability. However, you would not be able to play using it. The 6301URF costs more (about $ 40) but the 9116URF with its cost of (about $ 30) with its joystick is not a match for a usual mouse.
