I finally get the G84-4400

[Eclairz]

So far it feels nice typing doesn't feel as sticky as my old G84-4100 for some reason. Keyboard is european layout so taller enter key a well welcome addition to my keyboard collection.

the keys themselves are better sized especially the backspace key and the "`" is finally in the right place behind "1" and above the tab key.

The trackball itself has very clicky switches and abit chalky type ball moving sound.

The worst thing about the keyboard is that it doesn't have anyway to tilt the keyboard as the back legs seem to have gone missing so be aware of this lack if you plan to buy it.

Compared to my space saver packard bell its about the same width but half the height and shorter at the short end keysize is perfectly fine and I have a nice large esc key now.

pictures have been attached too

[Chloe]

Does it have a separate plug for the trackball? I wouldn't miss the feet at the back. I did notice the wide Fn key though, its placement has put me off getting one.

[Eclairz]

both plugs are ps2 using the keyboard as we speak, im currently using it through a proper usb adapter for my macbook. The trackball is fairly low down so there is not much chance to move it, it is slightly juddery compared to my mouse but then it is running through a usb adapter together with the keyboard and it probably has really old tech running through it.

The only thing is i wish it has one or two more button so i could use it to scroll a page or have a scroll wheel.

I'm not to bothered by the fn key placement as im used to laptops and space savers so i can adapt. But again you will have to relearn the keyboard and that is often the most off putting thing about space saver keyboards with their non-standard layouts. I still hate the placements of home and end keys but i'll get used to them again. The euro layout is much more important for me anyway

[Eclairz]

Also received my used G84-4400 opened it up to see if it was a once piece pcb or multipiece pcb keyboard, Its actually multipiece so you could just unplug the trackball part of the keyboard to make it function
as a keyboard only board.

There is one caveat though the board is actually slightly wider than a standard G84-4100 as you can see from the photos and the layout of the pcbs make the two incompatible for the other's case. But at least you could build another case for it anyway as the G84-4400 is a really flat case but contains no risers to tilter the back of the keyboard up.

After using the keyboard for a week now I find that the keyboard is much more comfortable with the more familiar european layout of the keys and larger backspace key. I still would rather completely remove the page up and page down keys and just make the enter key bigger but thats my personnal preferance.

If they could make the whole keyboard programmable that would of course be ideal but also very expensive so this is good enough for me.

The G84-4400 has one other feature not found in the G84-4100 and that is the fn-lock which allows a user to lock down the fn key when using the numpad alot. To be honest its unnecessary for me as i already own a seperate numpad and i don't enter reems of numbers all that often anyway

[Chloe]

Thanks for the pictures. I might still get one for the layout. I'm quite happy with the G84-4100 though.

It would be nice if these were programmable. I wonder how hard it would be to replace the controller. Having a Fn key opens up lots of hotkey possibilities.

I quite like the way the numpad works on the G84-4100. With Num Lock on, you have to press Fn key to produce numbers. It means I can type normally and be able to input numbers from a separate numpad.