Paul (Web Developer) 30/12/2018
Well, it's not *all* that, but it's very very good.
Backlighting is awesome, construction is high quality albeit 90% of Apple standard with the plastic trimming on the bottom feeling a little dinky and not perfectly finished (we'll see how long this one lasts given my Apple keyboard soldiered on through seven years until two keys had holes in the top of them).
Keystrokekeypress is short, but feels slightly longer than the Apple, and it may just be perception, because the specs are the same. What's not specified and is certainly different is that the keystroke is *spongey*. There's not as much push back, and while they feel like they take less effort to depress overall, they take more effort to push past the first notch until the full downward movement starts, and thus they also take longer time to depress. It's like you can feel them going down, whereas the Apple keyboard (with 2xAA batteries, circa 2011) feels like the key is either on or off compared to the Matias which I feel like I could do do a half-press on... if it wasn't for that first notch giving me a tough welcome and making me push through the first notch hard enough that I'm heading all the way down before I know it. I haven't used the new Magic keyboards from Apple, but I imagine the difference vastly greater again.
That's all very finite feedback which matters when you're typing at 80wpm, but if you don't care too much about typing feel then you won't notice anything and will just enjoy a nice keyboard with great texture on the keys.
One thing you'll definitely notice when transitioning from an Apple keyboard is that this keyboard is much larger, about 2cm wider, which has gone into the delete key and spacing between all the keys. Even so, it's taken me hours to get used to the location of the delete key, and I still haven't gotten used to the stretch required to use commandcontrolarrow keys, let alone adding shift - it's a lot harder on this size keyboard, both because the command and option keys are larger, and because there is an additional right control key, and because of the space to the arrow keys. They could have saved at least 5mm either side of the arrow keys for me, maybe more, without sacrificing aesthetics, let alone functionality.
I don't think it's worth the money (especially since buying in EuropeUK was something like 20% more expensive than from U.S.) but as there was no better choice, we have to be happy they exist. I think they'd sell a lot more if the pricing was better.
Truthfully, I actually bought another keyboard first, but the distributor cancelled my order because they were out of stock so after many hours researching and trying to avoid paying this price... I relented. Four stars is not to be trifled with, good keyboard, thanks for the keypad (would've been happier without it if I could have saved even just 10 quid or more) but especially happy for the backlighting with the battery to back it up.
Four keys to connect to four devices is a nice bonus. So is the one-year charge which is sweet compared to changing AA batteries monthly.
Connectivity and bluetooth responsiveness is no problems, although my Hackintosh had a week bluetooth chip and the Apple keyboard was successful where the Matias was not. After replacing the bluetooth cradle the problem is resolved, and there's no perceptible difference for responsiveness from the Apple keyboard... with a lot of additional pluses.
