At the time of writing this, it's $9.99 for the keyboard by itself at Microcenter, and about $21 for the board on Amazon.
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This is a mini-review of the Microsoft Wireless Keyboard 850, which I bought for myself at the price of $9.99 plus tax at my local Microcenter. My Model M, as much as I loved it, was tethered to a wire and sometimes was louder than I wanted a board to be at home. I had woken up somebody at home with typing early in the morning and decided I needed a quieter backup. Additionally, I was not always sitting in front of my desk properly when I was typing, and was straining my wrists bending them weird ways to be able to type. Thus I went on a hunt for a nice cheap wireless board and thought the Microsoft 850 actually looked like a decent option. The keyboard is available either as a keyboard alone or a bundle with a wireless mouse included as well. I purchased the keyboard only version as I had no need or want for the wireless mouse.
First of all, I call this a faux 78% because it does away with the spaces between the three key clusters of a full size keyboard layout, but doesn't smash the numpad and arrow key clusters together like the 78% design does. Instead you have a non-broken layout of keys next to each other. This is great for saving some space and my only complaint about the layout is I keep hitting "PgDn" when I want to hit "Delete". I know I will get over it soon, though.
As a scissor switch keyboard, the Microsoft 850 is one of the best values for your money. I have tried many other modern USB and PS/2 scissor switch boards and found many lacking compared to, say, a typical ThinkPad keyboard. The Microsoft 850 has a slightly larger key travel than the ThinkPad style scissor board and most budget scissor switch boards. The key travel is comparable to a Cherry MX. Actuation is very light and smooth with a crisp and stable return, very easy and nice feeling to type on, as you'd expect from a Microsoft board. I noted I was able to up my WPM a decent amount on this board after moving away from my Unicomp Model M, which makes sense as that is a very heavy board to type on. My WPM with this board beats my WPM on a ThinkPad scissor switch board or any of my mechanicals. The board does not look like it with stock photos, but there is a gentle arcing to the keys, just like how the are arced on the Model M. This made me very happy, as it was not a typical cheap board that puts all the keys on the exact same level.
The few media keys stay out of the way and work fully as expected, an expected bonus of buying a Microsoft keyboard. Of course, the calculator button between F12 and PrtScr launches the system Calculator app, and the play/pause and volume controls above the numpad work perfectly without any need for configuration with foobar2000, my player of choice. The board swaps out the right side Windows button for a "Fn" key. However, no keys have any blue alternate functions printed on them except for F5 thru F8, which I assume is designed for Windows 10 as they do nothing on my Windows 7 computer.
Aesthetically, I honestly love this board's design and think Microsoft hit the nail on the head with it. It is the thin bordered design that is popular with wireless keyboards nowadays, often being seen on Microsoft and Logitech's newer offerings. The board is very comfortable to use, even without a wrist rest. There are no LEDs to distract you and I appreciate this as I would have taped over them if there were any that stayed on during use. The keyboard is very thin and lightweight, but the keys have a nice sturdy feel and do not rattle in place. The sole LED by the numpad "." button only came on when I first inserted batteries into the keyboard and until it made connection with the USB dongle. Since then it has not come on once.
Let us now discuss the part of this keyboard I was most excited by: the AES encryption! Although my apartment is a low risk location for wireless keyboard input injection, it's a possibility, and it's a no brainer that for security minded people, a wired input device is a superior as there is no way to inject packets into a wired keyboard. The Microsoft 850 addresses this by having the USB receiver and keyboard negotiate an AES key, which is then used to encrypt all signals sent from the keyboard. This is both preferable in work environments where you may have many of the same model of keyboard, and anywhere security is a concern. When you first plug the receiver into a machine, it does take a little longer than you might expect for the devices to link, by an extra 5 or 6 seconds, due to the encryption handshake needing to take place. The encryption sealed the deal for me on this one, as even using it alone in my apartment, I would not be comfortable knowing the signal could be picked up by anyone who really wanted to try. Even though that almost certainly would never happen at my apartment, this board could be used in a public place or place of business which would be a much higher target for someone trying to pick up or send wireless keyboard signals. The peace of mind knowing your wireless keyboard is sending an encrypted signal is wonderful for anybody who knows how easy it can be to be nosy with a radio antenna, and in some areas, might finally allow people to no longer be tethered to a cable for security purposes. In my mind this is a massive achievement and I would be celebrating it even if the keyboard sucked to type on (but, luckily, it doesn't suck).
It is very usable as a wireless board. The box advertises up to 15 feet of range, but I have been able to walk all around my apartment, and as long as I can see my computer screen, I have been able to type and have no missed keystrokes. The only time I could manage to cause lost keystrokes was a very specific way of holding it (I had to raise the left half by crossing my left leg over my right knee and push the back of the keyboard into my leg) to only get about 2 or 3 lost keystrokes. Since then I have not been able to replicate this easily and find it is very reliable for not missing keystrokes. I noted a few people on Amazon had this complaint, but I have not been able to make the signal that bad. It also does not interfere with my Logitech M570's wireless signal, so I am happy.
Only time will tell if this manages to make its way to being my main keyboard. Even if it does not, I will be more than happy to keep this around and probably even hoard a backup or two for the excellent price of $10. For space conscious users, you get to have a full keyboard layout with the space saving concerns of the 78% without the awkward mashing up of keys. For the paranoid, you can finally use a wireless keyboard that can't have signals easily picked up or injected. For power users, you can build up a serious APM on this board. Since the Quake Champions beta opened, I was playing with my Unicomp Model M, but I was glad to find my actions felt even swifter with this keyboard, and personally very preferable to a Cherry MX too (my MX board still does not get any use aside from controlling Kodi on my HTPC or PS4 chats). For the money, how could you go wrong?
In conclusion, this is quickly becoming my new board of choice. I truly enjoy typing on it. My fingers do not suffer from fatigue like they might after hours of nonstop typing on many cheap scissor or rubber dome boards. I am keeping a Unicomp Model M around of course still, but being able to type from anywhere while not worrying about my keyboard's inputs free over the air. And, for the feature set you get, it's easily worth more than $10 in my mind. That thing I said earlier about getting some backups... I am actually gonna go do that later today and buy one or two more. I would hate to be without one of these now that I've had the pleasure of using it! Happy typing!
