The Business Blog at Intuitive.com

Dave Taylor has been involved with the online world since 1980 and is recognized globally as an expert on both technical and business issues. He has been published over a thousand times, launched four Internet-related startup companies, has written twenty business and technical books and holds both an MBA and MS Ed. He's a columnist for the Boulder Daily Camera and Linux Journal and frequently appears in other publications both online and in print. Additionally, Dave maintains four weblogs: The Business Blog at Intuitive.com, Ask Dave Taylor, Dave On Film, and GoFahterhood. Based in beautiful Boulder, Colorado, Dave is an award-winning speaker, sought after conference and workshop participant and frequent guest on radio and podcast programs, as well as active member of his community and busy single father to three children.

Adesso and the challenge of quality control

Perhaps the explanation for my experiences with Adesso keyboards is as simple as my having a heavy hand, but still, it's hard to know what conclusions to draw when product after product fails from a company.

But let me start at the beginning, or at least near the beginning.

Apple used to make a really great ergonomic keyboard that not only split, but let you actually adjust the center angle of the board to fit the width of your shoulders and natural keyboarding posture. A wonderful device and I went through two of them, never thinking to stockpile a few extras before they decided to discontinue the product.

When the last of those started to fail on me, I scoured online shopping sites, local stores and even the Apple Store itself, looking for a really good ergonomic replacement that was Mac-friendly. The best choice I could find was the Adesso AKB-805MAC, so I bought one.

Within no more than a week, the keyboard was failing on me, not generating a space character when I tapped on the bar and variously missing other key hits unexpectedly. Darn frustrating.

I called Adesso and they said "send it in!" so I did, but I went out and bought another of the 805MAC units that same morning because, well, I needed a keyboard.

While waiting for the first to be replaced (fixed?) the second one began to fail out of the box, this time with a column of keys failing: the 'u', the 'j' and the 'm' (look on a keyboard, you'll see what I mean about a "column").

The replacement keyboard arrived and it too had problems, again with the space bar. Unbelievable.

So I called Adesso back, explained the situation, was told that they were considering discontinuing the particular keyboard I was using, and that they'd send me two replacement keyboards if I'd send the two I had back to them. I did, using an old non-ergo keyboard for a week or so (yech) in the meantime.

You can guess what's happened now. Of the two new keyboards, one of them is again exhibiting the same problems with the right spacebar not sending a space to the computer, causing me to have to change how I'm typing to ensure I hit the spacebar harder, which of course completely defeats the ergonomics of an ergonomic keyboard.

I'm ready to throw the $#@$#@ keyboard out the window and boycott everything from Adesso for a few years at this point.

How can a company stay in business with such poor quality control? How can they keep shipping keyboard after keyboard without getting an earful from their retailers and customers? I can't possibly believe that this is something to do with how I use a keyboard, after I've had four (five? I lose count) fail on me in disturbingly similar ways.

The irony of the situation is that I really like the AKB-805MAC because it has direct keyboard controls for iTunes, which are incredibly convenient (think "mute" when the phone rings). But there's no way I'm going to buy another Adesso keyboard at this point.

What's your experience with keyboards? Do you use an ergonomic keyboard, and if so, which one? Clearly, it's time for me to buy yet another keyboard for my Mac/PC setup...

Posted by Dave Taylor at January 19, 2006 9:26 AM

Comments

FWIW, I have an extra somewhat-used Apple Adjustable Keyboard you can have. I was saving it for... I dunno. It just seemed too cool to not save. (I'm in Boulder, too.)

For about 8 years I've been using Kinesis keyboards. See:

http://multipart-mixed.com/productivity/kinesis_contoured_keyboard.html

As you can tell from my picture, they take *heavy* use and keep
working great. I also consider their design far superior to most
other ergo keyboards. Only quality problem I had was with my latest USB model, which had intermittent issues that I tracked down to a bad internal cable connection. I fixed it myself, now it works like a champ, too.

Posted by: Josh on January 23, 2006 11:43 PM

I have Dell Latitude laptop, I'm on my third (!) keyboard, and it's failing. Last replacement I even modified the mounting with the blessing of Dell technical support -- I even exchanged digital photos with them of what I was doing. I'm still amazed that a product with such a basic flaw can be marketed.

Posted by: Dennis D. McDonald on January 26, 2006 7:49 PM

I also purchased an Adesso touchpad keyboard and experienced issues right out of the box. I have never had issues with any other brand keyboard that I have purchased before. Therefore, I tend to believe that Adesso has somee QC issues with their products they need to address or they will not maintain any sense of customer satisfaction or loyalty.

Posted by: DeJean Williams on October 29, 2010 10:23 AM

Before you leave a comment, a tip: If you're interested in blogging, you should sign up for my Blogsmart News so you can stay up to date on the latest insider tips and ideas for your Internet business and marketing efforts. Sign up right now and you'll get a free copy of my "Insider's Guide to Blogging" ebook too!