Official Review: Satechi Slim X3 Bluetooth Keyboard (Hardware)

Here's something a little different...a keyboard designed not for gamers, but for professional Mac users. As somebody who is used to nice clicky mechanical keyboards, I wasn't expecting much. The X3 did, however, surprise me and surpassed my expectations ten-fold.

No Mac No Cry

Let me be honest with you... I do not have a Mac. I would never dream of owning a Mac. The image I have of Mac users in my head is of pretentious hipsters who just want to be different. That said, you have to admire the beauty of Apple's devices. I could never get used to the software, but the hardware itself is something to behold. This keyboard manages to capture this beauty well, all whilst not being an official Apple product, so that I can maintain my pretentious façade of 'never owning an Apple device'.

More important than it's beauty, however, is the way it performs. I've been using this keyboard at work for a few weeks now, and it fits like an old pair of shoes. Immediately, I could pick this up and type away, very rarely mistyping. Hell, even my colleagues at work seem to love this thing. I've been using this on a Windows machine, as you may have guessed, and there is almost no disadvantage to this, despite Satechi claiming that the X3 is 'designed for Mac devices'. To be honest, the best way I could describe the typing experience would be "a very good laptop keyboard", as in, good enough to be better than the average desktop keyboard, but not nearly as solid as a great mechanical one.

Build-wise, I think it's probably the most solid keyboard I've ever owned, or even used. This thing is made out of aluminium, making it feel heavy and substantial. The only flaw I can find here is that there are no built in 'feet' like you'd expect on almost any other keyboard. Instead, the box comes with some stick-on rubber domes, but this isn't quite as nice as feet that fold in and out.

Windows Caveats

There are a few caveats you have to keep in mind if you are using this on a Windows machine. Just a couple, really, really minor ones. The first is that, I cannot get alt codes to work. It's very rare I actually need these, but I do like to cram a cheeky em dash here and there in my emails. Secondly, (and I really am nitpicking here), is that the cable provided is USB C to USB C. A lot of PCs will not have this port, so you may need to find one of your USB-A to USB-C to charge or connect this in wired mode.

Overall, I cannot fault this keyboard. The only nit-picks I have are in a niche case that Satechi does not recommend in the first place, and I'm still having a great experience. And, if it makes you Mac users out there feel any better, my Mac-a-holic colleague at work loved this thing.