Friday, October 11, 2019

Chromebook backlit keyboard.

Email to Bobby Payne, Chrome Unboxed website.

https://chromeunboxed.com/about/

Robby,

I've watched many of your reviews. I think overall that you do a great job but with one glaring exception. You evaluate keyboards almost totally on feel, which is overly impacted by the fact that you touch type.

Many of us must look at the keyboard to type, which makes seeing the keys clearly even more important.

I bought the Asus C434 flip because of good reviews, especially yours. You weren't nuts about trackpad but loved the keyboard, which is backlit. Unfortunately, the keys are the same silver as the rest of the unit and their lighting varies from acceptable to really bad. It's also not easy to adjust the backlighting.

I also have a Microsoft Surface laptop, which has keys with dark gray background and the light of the keys adjusts to the light in the room. It's keyboard is way better than the Asus Chromebook. I got a new Windows PC just to run one program: Microsoft Access, which is by far the best single user DBMS for any operating system. I use it for my Radical Baseball blog.

I'm accustomed to a Chromebook that is not backlit and works just fine that way.

I'm returning the Asus and will monitor new Chromebooks for a replacement for my Toshiba, which will lose automatic updating, as my primary PC. I've been a Chromebook convert for about ten years.

Kenneth Matinale