Lofree Stream 2 overview: Nice to kind on, however oddly designed

The title 100 means it has 100 keys, comprising the QWERTY keyboard, F1 to F12 alongside the highest, and a numeric keypad on the facet. The structure isn’t fairly one hundred pc, however reasonably what’s referred to as 96 p.c. This implies the numeric keypad on the fitting is squeezed tightly subsequent to the Enter and arrow keys.

Lofree Stream 2: Quiet, however cramped

That’s what its predecessor appeared like too, and it was one among my minor complaints. Many keyboards with a 96 p.c structure provide you with a small margin between the principle keypad and the quantity keys. This provides the arrow keys a little bit of respiratory room and separates them from the remainder of the keys, making it simpler to keep away from unintended keystrokes.

There wasn’t room for that on the earlier mannequin, however the Stream 2 is bodily wider due to a 3 cm-wide strip to the fitting of the quantity keys, which doesn’t appear to serve any goal. A slight redesign of the right-hand facet would have been welcome. It takes time to get used to not urgent the left arrow key as an alternative of Ctrl, for instance.

Silent Version refers back to the switches. These are linear Pom Cloud switches with no click on. These present a tactile suggestions sign roughly midway to the underside. You’ll be able to kind very quietly on it should you’re not within the behavior of hammering away on the keys. Even a heavy keystroke produces solely minimal clatter due to a number of vibration-dampening layers, the strong aluminum chassis, and the dampening rubber ft. You’ll be able to lay the keyboard flat – at which level it’s barely two centimeters thick – or increase the rear edge utilizing the fold-out ft.

Lofree Stream 2: Options, connectivity

There’s additionally a small change below one of many ft that toggles between off, wi-fi connection, or USB-C. For wi-fi connectivity, you’ll be able to join both by way of the included 2.4 GHz nano-receiver or as much as three Bluetooth pairings. You’ll be able to then change shortly between these utilizing an Fn key mixture.

Mattias Inghe

One factor I complained about with the earlier mannequin was the backlighting, which solely shone across the keys and didn’t illuminate the characters. It was of no use in a darkish room. This has been rectified, and the characters on all of the keys at the moment are clearly illuminated.