True story: I used to bring loud keyboards to work so I could hear every stroke make the point it was trying to make. Dell’s latest does away with that.
Shared offices and shared rooms tend to have one very important thing in common: there are more people than just yourself. That’s important because it means when you’re picking gadgets to use, you typically need to think about others, not just what you want.
For instance, if someone is sitting there doing something else — say reading a book — you ideally should ask them whether you can play some music and if it will bother them, before switching on the most rousing metal hit you can find that you’ll both inevitably headbang to.
The same sort of thing goes with keyboards. Some can be loud, particularly those of the mechanical ilk, with each stroke hitting a switch like a hammer to plastic, ensuring the message is written and no keystrokes lost in translation.
Good keyboards are great, but they can often be loud, especially if you happen to be a fast typist. It’s probably a good thing this journalist has his own office, because his wife often compares him to the GIF of cat typing furiously on a keyboard.
Dell has a keyboard or two that might just help in these situations, launching a business-focused keyboard and mouse combination in Australia, as well as a wired keyboard that aims to be quiet.
Called the Dell Silent Keyboard, it’ll come with a mouse in its wireless package and without in the wired option, with the KM555 wireless silent keyboard and mouse combo supporting Bluetooth to let you use Windows computers complete with this year’s addition of the dedicated Copilot key.
Mostly, the keyboard is about being quiet, with silent keys that we’re guessing (Dell hasn’t confirmed) come with a slightly lower profile so they don’t make as much noise. The mouse is also quieter, supporting silent clicking, too, so you don’t end up annoying your coworkers and roommates.
The wired version of the same keyboard (KB525C) is more for the office, but with a wired connection supporting both USB-C and USB-A in the same cable, and providing a full-size keyboard with a low profile, 15 programmable shortcut keys, that dedicated Copilot key, and a panel of four keys for the video conferencing tools we use, providing shortcuts for turning the camera on, turning the mic off, and sharing the screen.
Neither are made to be all that expensive, either, with the Dell Wired KB525C fetching around $61 in Australia, while the KM555 Silent Keyboard and Mouse are priced at just under $100 locally.
