Keyboard

This is definitely a "for what it's worth" sort of comment.

I've always viewed the curved keyboards offered by Microsoft, Logitech and others with a bit of a sneer. "New-agey, gimicky, too-hip-for-me" was my general assessment. My few encounters with such keyboards were in very limited circumstances, where I was trying one out in unrealistic settings (standing up, in a store, etc.).

Circumstances recently conspired to get me on a curved (Logitech K350) keyboard, and to spend some time with it in a real/production environment. And I have to say that I'm quite impressed. First of all, there was no "getting used to" period; I was typing at full speed immediately. Secondly, the keys all seem to be in "just the right place" so that my fingers find them on the first try, every try. It's like, wow, this is actually a better keyboard.

I will qualify that remark by saying it's a better keyboard for typing, which is not the only thing one does with a keyboard. I have a little trouble using the function keys, numbers and cursor control keys, and it seems that the slight curving puts those keys in less familiar places. But for straight-ahead typing, like writing blogs entries and email messages, the new keyboard is definitely an improvement.

So my recommendation is: if you do a lot of typing, you should try out one of the curved keyboards. I've been happily impressed with mine. (The Logitech K350 is rather large and pricey, and has a bunch of "new-agey, gimicky, too-hip-for-me" features—and an extremely annoying lack of Caps Lock and Num Lock lights. But for actual typing, it's great.)

As an aside, Staples has a 14-day no-questions-asked returns policy.