It’s been a year plus since my last review on the iPhone 11 Pro, so today I will be writing a short review on my most recent purchased product that I enjoyed using most, and as the title suggests, it’s the Microsoft Wireless Number Pad.
Recently I’ve been getting into rendering & modelling using Blender, but it’s kinda hard without using a number pad for simple task like positioning camera position and view positions. In the hopes of optimising my Blender workflow, I decided to cash out for a number pad and after searching the web for some recommendations, I fell in love with the looks of Mircosoft’s offering.
Upon receiving the parcel, the box had some slight dents and scruffs (which really hinders the unboxing experience exponentially 🥲). The cover slides down from the top to bottom revealing the numpad in all of it’s glory. To pick the item out, there is a pull tab (sticker) on the bottom of the numpad printed with a small line across prompting the user to interact with the sticker first. This is not the first product I observed that utilise this in product packaging. Most known are Apple products, i.e iPhones, which the relationship of the pull tab furthers extends from the packaging to the navigation bar (bottom of the homescreen).
The number pad body and keys are mainly manufactured from injection moulded plastic. Although both front and back of the numpad are matte finished, the front is slightly smoother than the one on the back. This makes the body to be quite scratch resistant, plus the light weight make it suitable to be carry around to coffee shops and places to work, if we ever had the chance again (🤬 covid). Besides, as can see from the pictures above, there are none visible parting lines from the injection moulding processes which I suspects the lines are hidden in the inner part of the body.
One nice little detail I realised which are on the sides of the numpad, the line where the two parts of plastic is joint is a tad lower instead of being in the middle. This ensures when the users touch the product, they doesn’t feel any disparities of surfaces which induces discomfort of handling the product. To further prevent the user from touching the ‘lines’, the upper part is also moulded as a slight ‘bump’ to further ensure that the user fingers doesn’t reach the joint area of the products.
The keys on the keycaps and the Microsoft logo are printed via silk screening, which makes me concern about the longevity of the keys visibility as the silk screen printed characters look quite easily to be scrapped off when throw it in a bag with keys or knick knacks.
The icons for the ejector pin and the arrow keys at the back of the battery slot are laser etched which give the etched area a glossy shine to differentiate from the all matte surface. It’s quite entertaining to able to see so various types of texture applied on a simple numpad like this.
The key travel of the numberpad is a quite deep than what I expect but there is kind of a more mushy feeling when typing on it. p.s. I’m not a keyboard expert and do not own any external mechanical keyboard, I’m happy with my macbook’s keyboard (the Magic keys not the butterfly keys), hence I’m comparing the numpad to.
The numpad is held up by the 3 rubber feet and provides great resistance and keeps the numpad still while typing on it. Although being darker colour than the rest of the body, it still is easily tainted. Well, that’s what you going to live with when you buy a white device.
The power button during the power off stage has a red indicator which is quite a smart implementation without adding any LED indicators, old school mechanical solution which I’m always a fan of. Sliding the power button to the left turns on the device, and to my surprise, it hasn’t been painted green to signal the device is on! And now, I kinda despise the moment I have to turn on the numpad.
I took liberty and ask Hee Hee to get my favourite green (#32d74b) photoshopped on the background and well, it makes so much sense now. Do you not agree?
Another gripe I have with the Mircosoft numpad is that of changing the battery is a hassle and requires tools to access it. I can imagine a bunch of scenarios where the battery is dead and I am out of the house without any sim tool nearby. I would love to see the implementation of the magnetic latch from the Microsoft Bluetooth Designer Mouse into the numberpad which adds cohesion the whole product line.
On the bright side, I love that the numpad is powered by an CR2032 Lithium coin battery, which means that it can be easily replaceable when the battery dies out. Plus it’s good from the environmental standpoint.
I’m not able to tell how long the battery life is but the official website cites around 24 months (will update if I’m still around and using this numpad in 2 years time.)
As an expert of none, I have to asked for opinion from my friend, Jona on his take on the font of the numpad. Based on his observation, the font used is Segeo UI which Microsoft uses for online and marketing contents. As of his words, the font is ‘functional, clean and clear’. While the font is brilliantly designed for the digital world, he did mentioned that it is ‘okay’ for physical products and I had to second his opinion on that. The font is too thin for a physical product as can see with the comparison of the ‘3’ between the numberpad and the clock. Of course, the comparison will be better with a Braun Calculator, which I do not own one but currently in dire NEED of one.
Like the font used, the product gets the job done in a clean cut, no bullshit kind of way and especially at the price around $30 for a well built product. That said, I willingly to top up another $10 just to have the green indicator and the magnetic latch for the battery.
Thank you for reaching to this point. I promise that I won’t procrastinate and will write more reviews 🤭.
*all photos are taken by me unless stated otherwise.
