An easy to clean keyboard for the very messy and families with young kids, but typing suffers
Written By
Published on 29 November 2012
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1 / 5
Our rating
Reviewed price £26 inc VAT
We’ve seen washable keyboards before, but they were pretty stodgy old office designs. The K310 by comparison looks pretty smart. Unfortunately that didn’t last long, as we quickly put our filthiest writer to work on it. After a couple of weeks it was pretty mucky, but to speed up the process we added copious pastry crumbs, a hefty dash of coffee dregs and ground in some fluff that had accumulated at the bottom of an old desktop PC – plus some hand cream for good measure.
Then it was off to the sink for a clean up. The keyboard can take temperatures up to 50C and can be completely submerged (to a depth of 30cm) for up to five minutes. Having given it a long soak and then attacked it with the supplied brush, which lets you get right under the keys. It came out sparkling – clean enough to eat our lunch off – though it took a few minutes for the water to drain out.As a keyboard it’s a little less successful. It’s a wired design, which we like as we find replacing batteries a pain; and the pop-out feet give it a comfortable typing angle. However, the keys are spongy and lack feedback. This may well be a problem related to the waterproofing but that’s not going to cheer you up if you’ve got a long document to type. Although for entering URLs, search terms, keyboard shortcuts and short emails it’s fine.
If you’re looking for a keyboard that can survive anything yourself or your children can throw at it, then the Logitech K310 is a good choice. Although we wouldn’t pick it if typing is a big part of your PC usage. A compromise product then, but not a bad one.
Written by
Seth Barton
Seth Barton is a manager for UX Writing at PlayStation Partners and was previously the editor of Expert Reviews.
