When my manager left recently, I was lucky enough to adopt her MacBook Pro and Apple keyboard for work. The MacBook Pro is quite nice, but I'm really impressed by the keyboard because it's really good quality and nice to use.

The Apple wired keyboard is available for around £29 from Apple directly; however, it's worth shopping around as many resellers will sell it cheaper, especially without the box. It's available in wired or wireless versions, and the wired version is available with or without a number pad. The version I'm reviewing is the wired numeric keyboard.

The keyboard is really easy to use - simply plug into a USB port and you're ready to start typing. The keyboard is very compact, and includes the common keys you'd expect (alphabet, number, a set of numeric, shift and caps lock, function and arrow, escape etc.), but doesn't take up much space at all. There are no 'extra' bits like curves, space, or general bulk like you get with Windows keyboards (particularly Microsoft ones), and whilst it doesn't give you a massive amount of options in terms of customising keys, I find all that stuff useless anyway and prefer the extra desk space.

The keyboard itself is made from aluminium so it's quite cold to the touch. However, the keys are made from white plastic, and are pretty flat, so the silver colour helps you to distinguish them more easily. The keys are also raised slightly off the flat aluminium surface, so it's much harder to spill liquids down them or lose bits of food - much easier to keep clean and hygienic. Because the keys are so flat, travel time across them is greatly reduced and I find it much quicker to type - my fingers pretty much dance over them, and they require only a little pressure which is good for me as I'm a light typist.

The keyboard sits almost completely flat on the desk - it has a flattish bar on the back at the top which raises it slightly, but if you hate flat keyboards this probably isn't for you. I did start off by propping it up, but I got used to it after a few days and my wrists weren't hurting at all so I decided to stick with it. You might need a keyboard wrist rest for more comfort.

The keyboard handily has a USB port on either side, which can support low-powered peripherals like USB sticks so you don't have to fiddle around at the back of your computer. This is an advantage over the wireless keyboard, which doesn't have any USB ports, however if you use them then your workspace will look more cluttered.

So what are the disadvantages? Firstly, the price - it's reasonable for Apple hardware but expensive compared to many other keyboards with the same or better functionality, which can be bought for around a third of the price.

Secondly, the keyboard's caps lock requires you to press it extra hard to register so you don't accidentally type in capitals. However, I find this really irritating as typing hard doesn't come naturally to me. A few weeks on, I'm still not used to it despite typing for around seven hours a day.

Thirdly, you may need to go into your computer's settings to configure some of the keys how you want them as the function keys don't work as you'd naturally expect. I also find that the keys revert too easily to their natural state. Having said that, changing the settings only takes a few seconds and is very easy to do.

However, these disadvantages aren't too bad really considering the keyboard looks and feels so nice. The requirements state that it's to be used with a Mac computer, but the Internet suggests you will be able to use with a Windows PC - buy at your own risk if you don't have a Mac!! If I'd had a choice I would probably have gone for the non-numeric keyboard as I never use the number pad, but this version is the most popular. I'm not that keen on the wire and I imagine the wireless keyboard looks even better, but they do drain batteries very quickly so that's something to consider if you're unsure about which to buy.

Overall, it's a great keyboard and worth the money - especially if you do a lot of typing.