Think Viewsonic and you rarely think keyboards. Monitors, absolutely, but bargain basement input devices rarely cross your mind. We were thus intrigued by the Viewsonic Viewmate Office keyboard, a low-price unit that proudly sports the Viewsonic name.

As it turns out, the company really should have stuck to displays, sadly.

First things first, though. It's a sizeable beast that demands a reasonable chunk of your desk space and comes with 104 main keys to it. These seem slightly smaller in comparison to an assortment of Logitech and Microsoft full-sized keyboards we contrasted the Viewmate Office with, but we were gratified to see a full-sized Enter key. It's a real bugbear when this is cut down in size.

The keyboard then features a further abundance of hot keys, arranged around the top and to the side, and these are the main culprits in increasing the physical size and footprint of the unit. These keys cover an assortment of functions, from zooming in and out of pictures through to launching applications and controlling media, and it really feels that Viewsonic has thrown everything it can think of at them.

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There are too many, truth be told, and a smaller, better chosen collection of hot keys would probably have served the product better. That said, the bundled software does allow you to customise them should you so desire.

The keyboard we reviewed connects to your PC via a PS/2 port rather than USB, and our attempts to utilise a (not supplied) PS/2 to USB adapter didn't end with any success. USB versions are, however, available.

Whichever you opt for, you're still going to hit the main stumbling block of the Viewmate Office, which is that it simply feels cheap and not too comfortable to use. From the moment you lift it out of the box, it's clear that this is no premium input device. That's okay, though, given the low retail price.

But when you start typing, the keys feel hollow and the travel simply doesn't feel right. We were happy enough typing on it for a short period of time, but after a prolonged session of tapping away we were yearning for something a little more comfortable to use.

Viewsonic's displays have, in the past, won several plaudits from us, and we suspect that they will continue to do so. But on this evidence, while it's admirable that the company produces such a feature-rich low cost keyboard, it's of limited use if it's not comfortable enough to use.

And it isn't.

Lots of functions, not enough comfort. It's attractively priced but there's an element of false economy at work here.