Review on 🔑 XENCELABS Quick Keys: Wireless One-Handed Shortcut Keyboard with 40 Customizable Keys, OLED Display, for Drawing Tablet/Pen Display – Black by Sharon Johnson

XENCELABS Quick Keys, Shortcut Remote: $89.99 at the time of writing I am not a professional designer. I know, I know, the title of this review advertises the professional potential of this fast remote. And I stand by it. I use a "professional" software tool called Pixelmator Pro on my Mac for home photo editing. It mimics much of the functionality of Adobe Creative Suite Photoshop. I've wanted a shortcut tool for a long time, and when I saw this device from Xencelabs I jumped at it. Read on to find out why I love it. This device is a complete retail experience. The packaging is a beautiful full color box with an outer sleeve that opens to reveal an elegant two piece black box. Sliding the top of the inner box reveals a quick start card (with QR codes for quick start guides) and a remote control below it. Below are the rest of the accessories: a nice zippered hard case with a USB-A-to-C cable, a wireless dongle (USB-A), and a USB-A-to-C adapter. Overall, this is the kind of retail unboxing I've come to expect from a tech accessory at this price point. Setting up the Quick Keys remote was as easy as it gets. A special driver needs to be installed to use this device, but the links provided by the QR codes will point you in the right direction to download it. After installing the driver, I simply plugged in the remote using the cable that came with it (thankfully it has a USB-C port for connecting/charging) and the program recognized it straight away. The OLED screen isn't the highest resolution, but it's more than enough to make it easy to read (even for my glasses-wearing eyes), and it has the ideal brightness in low to bright light. Presets for standard software (e.g. Photoshop). Unfortunately, my software (Pixelmator Pro as mentioned above) was not one of them. This gave me the opportunity to check the configurability of the device right away. There are many options for what you can assign to buttons and the wheel, including groups of options for general system functions (like opening/launching and invoking Siri on Mac, navigation commands like showing launchpad/desktop, and any combination of mouse clicks). d required). There are five button sets in total, which you can toggle with the button on the left side of the screen, allowing you to assign up to 40 different actions to each app (actually 44 if you count the watch face). The watch face is also highly customizable with four different modes (wheel function assignments), each of which can be assigned a unique LED color, light intensity, and dialing speed. And switching between modes is as easy as pressing a button in the middle. I'd also like to point out that once the app settings are pre-configured, it seamlessly switches between app profiles depending on which app is in focus. The experience couldn't be better as the screen on the remote changes to show different commands and the color of the watch face changes to a preset for the new app. Now that I've entered my shortcuts (hehe) using Pixelmator Pro, my workflow is the fastest ever. Since it worked so well there, I decided to try it out in a keyboard-intensive game I love (Mini Healer, an RPG healing sim). Ouch. My. My goodness. This is *surprising* in games with heavy key commands. Since you can technically assign macros (a series of key presses) to any key, this can *really* take your game to the next level. In the case of the mini healer, I can use the wheel to move my character and the keyboard shortcut to target my heroes and cast healing spells on them. It's actually one of my favorite devices of a long time, and it's *so* near perfect, but it still has a few minor annoyances. Although it allows wireless connection, a dongle is required. In the age of Bluetooth 5, it just doesn't make sense to use proprietary wireless connections. I can see how this can improve performance (possibly by reducing latency), but in an editing tool I just don't see the need for the millisecond difference. And while we're talking about the key, I think they could incorporate a slot in the remote to hold it. From the looks of it, you'll want to keep it in a hard case (not a big deal, but a slot in the device itself ensures they're always together when you put it back). The only other annoyance I would like to mention about this remote is that the driver prevents you from using other non-Xencelabs design tools (like Wacom tablet etc.). They have a pretty good set of such tools and I can see where they are integrated into the same software as the remote. However, if you are a digital artist with existing tools, understand that most likely this will not work with them. , solid construction, very smooth operation, wireless, OLED screen, USB-C connectivity, great accessories included. *Cons*: Dongle for wireless communication. Doesn't work well with third party tools. * Conclusion: * I LOVE this thing. It's such a great addition to my daily workflow (and gameplay) that I can't believe I haven't searched for something like this before. If you're a designer/artist, consider adding it to your desktop (assuming you're not already committed to other design tool brands). Despite minor flaws, this thing is a solid five out of five stars. I would definitely order this again.