So when our good friends at Aevoe suggested that we try their new Moshi keyboard the Celesta we made a space for it in front of our most stylish shuttle PC expecting the Celesta to follow in the footsteps of the other uber cool  Moshi products. A few days later a tracking ID arrived, our new keyboard had shipped and it was soon sat with us in what we can only describe as luxury packaging. The boys at Moshi really know how to make getting a new bit of tech very special and easily rival Apple in this regard.

The first layer of packaging consists of a very tasteful box which in turn contains the Celesta keyboard which is wrapped in a black pouch sealed with a Moshi label. Opening this pouch gave us our first glimpse of the sleek and ergonomic Celesta which on first sight looks very expensive. The keyboard feels as if it has been cut from the same sheet metal as an Audi, the aluminium case is in fact diamond cut from aluminium with a sleek profile of under 1". The main connection is USB to the PC or Mac and the right hand side of the unit houses 2 USB 2.0 ports making for easy connection of a mouse or USB stick.

Once connected  to the Shuttle test machine it detected the Celesta and managed to get it all up and running without the need for any CD's  or driver downloads. We knew the keyboard was ready for our review when not only the num lock key lit up a nice neon blue but the moshi logo started to glow like the front of a swanky sushi restaurant.

So to our tests, firstly initial impressions. The critical factor for us is always the feel and separation of keys, the Celesta is more like a laptop keypad in its tactile feedback and bounce level which is very pleasing to use, it allows for rapid typing and the key separation is good rather than perfect. Over the course of a weekends review writing we did note that the space bar seems to have a differing spring loading to the rest of the keys which makes a slightly annoying noise as when hit with the same force as a QWERTY key it bottoms out more readily. This could be quite deliberate and you may like it but for us it was just a little annoying.

There is a raft of function keys as you'd expect for a modern keyboard and as luck would have it they are all in the correct places. So no new wacky layout to learn as some manufacturers seem to push on their users with so called multimedia keyboards.

You can align the keyboard depending on if it sits at the desk edge (13 degrees) or flat on a table (9 degrees) using a built in kick stand, the rest of the ergonomic design comes from the all in one angled facia which manages to keep the wrists flat and at a very natural angle. We can testify to its supreme comfort and we even managed to ditch those ridiculous gel wrist pads that you see scattered around office.

The 46 x 19.5 x2.5 cm Celesta is not only a great companion for standard office work but it will also have your workmates drooling with lust as they admire your sleek keyboard as it sits glowing on your desk. It actually made our standard mouse look a bit cheap so be warned when you put a new moshi keyboard on your desk it may spark the need to go mouse shopping too.

Retailing for $120 the moshi Celesta does demand a higher price than many standard keyboards but you do get a slice of techno art rather than a basic beige slab of nothing. So if you fancy typing on the only gadget we've tested that would look at home in a Sushi bar and have a PC / Mac or Linux machine then head on over to the moshi site.

Moshi Webstore

Published - 28/05/2007

More Accessory Reviews-

[ Up ] [ Olympus Digital Voice Recorder W-10 ] [ Logitech Trackman Wheel ] [ Expansys USB Storage ] [ Starck Optical Mouse ] [ Nokia SU-1B Digital Pen ] [ iTech Virtual keyboard Review ] [ Motorola HF800 ] [ ZyXEL AG-225H WiFi Sniffer ] [ Iqua Smart Badge ] [ Moshi Celestra ] [ Western Digital Passport ] [ Microsoft Wireless Optical Mouse ] [ WiFi Finder ] [ Targus Wireless Multimedia Presenter ] [ Targus Wireless Remote Presenter ] [ Targus Business Card Reader ]