Zippy EL-610 Lighted Keyboard

The Zippy EL-610 is a super slim, "super mini" notebook style keyboard featuring a total of 91 keys and a handy USB interface for use on both the PC and Mac platforms. The keyboard follows a rather simple and compact design making it perfect for use in presentation rooms or even every day use barring that your fingers are small enough to fit the keys.

Most pictures cannot illustrate how small this keyboard really is so I have placed the EL-610 on top of my everyday keyboard for a comparison shot. As you can see the EL-610 is quite a bit smaller than your standard keyboard making this product a perfect addition to computers on the move or when space is limited.

Having been blessed and/or burdened with rather large hands and fingers I find it rather difficult to type on certain keyboards, the distance between the keys is often just too short for comfortable typing. I did do some typing on the Zippy EL-610 and found the keystroke to be equal in distance and pressure to your typical laptop though to be honest unless I spent a considerable amount of time typing I couldn't finish a single sentence without having to make numerous corrections.

On the other hand the lady of the house had no problem typing on the EL-610 and I think she up and stole it from me since as of this writing the keyboard has disappeared from the lab.

One of the coolest features of the EL-610 is with the press of a button the keyboard will light up in a rather bright blue that is viewable in just about any indoor lighting condition. The blue glow comes from a thin sheet of Electron Luminescence film that is located under the keys. The way I understand it, this film is basically a low power cathode light that draws its power from the USB port, though regardless of how it lights up the glow is still really cool.

The Zippy EL-610 is a very unique product with one rather cool feature that fits right into what we like to review here at Ninjalane. By day you have a normal looking laptop keyboard but once the lights go down simply press a button and a cool blue glow illuminates your work surface.

Typing on the EL-610 was rather difficult for me due to its extremely small size though for a person with small hands and fingers this might be a perfect solution.

Uses for this keyboard are pretty limited though it definitely fills a niche need for a keyboard in low light conditions. I can easily see this product being used as a console keyboard on a LAN party server or for use with a Home Theater PC when you are just to lazy to turn on the light.

USB Interface
Cool blue Electron Luminescence glow
Viewable in all indoor lighting conditions
Small keyboard

Small keyboard
Difficult to type on with large fingers

I would like to thank Bytecc Inc. for helping make this review possible.