Performance

This is a standard membrane switch keyboard with native six-key rollover, which works fine, as Aqua's test confirms, and is also fine in my books given wireless keyboards are by nature intended for non-gaming or intensive keystroke use. Note that these do not count key modifiers either. Similarly, no key chatter was detected on all the keys using Switch Hitter.

Given the nature of wireless devices, let's talk battery life and input latency. The former was a non-issue during the testing period of four weeks, and I expected nothing less given these are basic USB 2.0 devices with no lighting aside from a simple setup on the keyboard for the battery's remaining charge and a pairing confirmation. Both devices came paired to the dongle out of the box and worked as expected, and I then left for CES and turned them off and removed the batteries to be sure. I came back to find the keyboard was not working anymore. I tried brand-new batteries, which did not help either. At this point, I contacted Genius who suggested pairing the keyboard again just to be sure. In order to do so, one has to insert the batteries while simultaneously holding down Esc, +, and - (in the alphanumeric section). In an ideal situation, the indicator LED would flash thrice to confirm successful pairing, but in my case, it was a single flash that is indicative of low battery life instead. So I disassembled the keyboard, which I went over earlier, and found out that a battery terminal was slightly loose and making poor contact with the battery electrode on one end. This was a simple fix and is very likely a one-off issue, though you should be aware of it. I let Genius know as well since this issue could be due to either a build quality issue or a need for better quality control on their part, or that of their suppliers for the parts.

Once that was resolved, things were back to normal as they could be. I was operating the keyboard and mouse from ~6' away from the dongle, which was in line of sight. There was no perceived lag at any time, including a few precious hours of single player gaming in between. I personally do not like chiclet keycaps on membrane switches, but this is completely a user preference and will have no impact on my scoring on the next page. The addition of the stabilizer bars helps when using the larger keycaps, especially the space bar, for those who were curious.

The ability to set up mouse and keyboard settings for profiles associated with specific applications to then have the ability to quickly launch said application saves a lot of time, especially compared to OEM kits these are going to be inevitably compared against. For example, opening Excel and navigating a large spreadsheet with zoom and scroll on the mouse wheel depending on profiles can be done quickly, just as launching a calculator for quick checks before using a formula for an entire Excel column. However, I would have liked to see the driver report battery life so I know when to start charging another set of rechargeable batteries I'd keep handy.


As always, the sound of a keyboard is based on more than just the switch type. So when comparing sound clips, consider the keyboard as a whole. In this case, I have provided above an example sound clip of me typing on the Genius SlimStar 8008 keyboard sample at ~80 WPM. For context, you can find sound clips from other keyboards here, including those with membrane switches. I did bottom out here since there is no way not to with membrane switches, which does affect the sound signature. Note that the keyboard is on the quieter side, so background noise is also being picked up by the microphone in an attempt to increase the signal.