this is the Microsoft Arc it's not out yet but we do have a sample here to show
you today this is a wireless style that
works that's their little slogan for it wireless PC and Mac keyboard and their
their thing is okay yeah that it's style that works so it's a stylish small
little keyboard that's meant to be I would imagine well here's what I would
use it for okay I'm not going to tell you what it's for cuz I don't know what
they intend it for but I would use this from the couch to control my media
center because it's exactly the kind of size that you can comfortably put it in
your lap but still be able to comfortably type actually we'll find out
if we can comfortably type once I actually get it out of the box but okay
here we go why don't we see what what Microsoft has to say about it meet the
art keyboard with beautiful curves and a compact design it's at home wherever you
are okay so in my case on the couch excellent you can show it off clean
lines and an ey catching shape complement your style here there
anywhere something about using it anywhere and be free also something
about using it anywhere they have a little picture of the Nano transceiver
for wireless Freedom okay so let's find
the seals and I do not have anything even
remotely resembling a knife on
me uh okay here hold on actually just a sec I have a fork and I will just use
that to pierce the sticker and then hopefully the whole sticker will come
away from for me and then we'll go from there or I could just peel the sticker
bear with me here just going to peel the sticker up because my Fork has lasagna
on it and I think that that would be um
not quite sanitary especially because like well you know old lasagna
isn't really a very sanitary thing to put on stuff that's my wisdom for the
day okay so here we are it is covered in
a little cloth sheath that is to protect it from scratches I'm assuming and also
to make the presentation of this is actually excellent look at this so you
open up your box you get a little sheath
pocket envelope thing here made of like a nice clothy material then you get oh
this is nice so this is would be a CD and probably your user's guide start
here helpfully labeled even so you right
here so this must be a quick start guide so they show you how to put in the
batteries put in the wireless trans Seer and then press the buttons in order to
link it up oh cool oh that's a neat system so basically to turn the keyboard
oh okay to turn the keyboard on or off press and hold function and Escape until
the battery light changes and then
that's it huh need do
okay then you've got a Microsoft product guide here which probably include some
warranty information as well okay two AAA batteries not a big fan of AAA
batteries but when you're trying to make a device as compact as possible
sometimes it's unavoidable it's just that they're sort of they're more as
expensive as doublea's and you don't get more battery life out of them etc etc
they're not really my favorite thing but let's get this Arc keyboard out of here
oh that is nice actually so you can see it has a slight curve to it hence the
name Arc and on the bottom is a cleverly designed little compartment for the D or
AAA batteries see now I'm all screwed up for the AAA batteries and then right
here is the little Nano transer is that
I love it held in by a magnet look at that so you never have to worry
about it coming out as long as you know
you don't have a a curious toddler that
comes along and eats it anyway that's really convenient and then the top of
the keyboard itself so I'm going to apologize in advance for the crot shot
here I'm just going to go ahead and put this on my lap and actually that's not
bad you you can comfortably reach all the buttons it is a very standard layout
so you can see that you've got long shift keys on both sides you've got a long enter key so it doesn't have any of
the weird bilingual keys that cut off your shift or um the the strangely
located slash key that would cut your backs space down to the point where I
mean if you have small hands reaching a back space beyond about here is
completely unreasonable so yeah I I personally hate the short backspace key
you've got all of your function keys no
you do not oh this is interesting okay in order to save space what they've done
with the layout is a they've only got one Windows key so there's no Windows
key on the right hand side that's a function key oh and this appears to be a
mouse that is something I didn't know that oh no these are your arrows okay so
here are all the things that they've managed to make more compact they've
removed a Windows key put in a function key they've turned the control the right
control into the arrow keys which is a on dpad button okay then up here they've
actually got f F1 to F6 and then you use
the function key in order to access F7 to F12 great that works for me and then
we've got all of our home and page up page down and print screen all in four
buttons right here and then they've even included media buttons so you've got
mute louder and quieter and then delete and insert but no no play stop pause
that's a little bit disappointing given what I personally would be using
something like this for but I mean really if you have a media center you should probably own one of these already
anyway it's like the most useful $15 or
whatever it costs that I've ever spent on a hardware component in fact I own
three anyway thank you for checking out my unboxing and first look at the arc I
still think the coolest feature is the magnetic transceiver that's so cool
thank you again for checking out my unboxing of the Microsoft Arc