XPPen Mini Keydial ACK05 Wireless Shortcut Keyboard Bluetooth Programmable Express Remote Control with Dial & Customized Express Keys for Drawing Tablet PC MacBook Windows Images Video Editing

I needed a little shortcut keyboard capable of working across both PC or Mac platforms. This fits the bill delightfully. Being a compact size, the ACK05 has a minimal footprint on your desk. If your PC is running Win 7 or later or your Mac is using OS 10.10 or later, this is a great little device to have. I oftentimes have to jump back and forth between either a PC or Mac environment in my work, so having a little keypad where one simple button press eliminates the need for me to remember which keyboard shortcuts are required for tasks across either OS is wonderful.I use this little guy all the time.Functionally, it's a pretty decent bag. Buttons all feel nice with a proper click to them that the scissor switches provide. The wheel is great for assigning with programs to access things like rotation or zoom options, though I really wish it didn't have indexer-clicks when turning it. I prefer wheels with a silent no-cllck control feel to them...but at this price I'm not going to hum about it.It works, so I'm happy.Battery life is excellent. Work with this peripheral for hours and hours and hours and it runs and runs.I basically just have to remember to plug the USB-C type cord into it at the end of the work week and It's good to go for Monday.Yes, there are flashier and more expensive shortcut keyboard devices out there but I really appreciate this one for its simplicity. I've used the $100 Xencelabs Quick Keys remote keypad before, I found it an extravagant exercise that was more flash than function. Small, slippery low-profile buttons positioned along the outer edges of the unit to make way for an OLED screen with really hard to read tiny text, and some RGB gimmickery thrown in. Battery life on that device wasn't great as I recall.The ACK05 on the other hand has easy-to-press raised buttons across its entire diminutive surface, and if you can use a sharpie and have some Avery labels on hand (I use the removable style tiny ones) you can customize your keypad to some degree. I suppose you could even use cut-to-size sticky colored post-it note paper to add color to the buttons.The ACK05 requires one of the buttons on the 10-button layout be assigned as the "key group switching" button... it allows you to set up and customize 4 possible groups of (9) keys for a possible combination of 36 potentially different shortcuts / actions.That is way more shortcuts than I need, but it's nice to know they're there if you need them.Additionally you can assign a button as "set preview" in one (or all) of the groups. This will display the currently selected groups of keys and their programmed functions on the monitor when you press it.I have that option on both groups of the two key groups I use, so I have 8 keys remaining on each group I can assign functions to.I kind of wish the center-button in the rotating wheel could be assigned something else besides "choose a wheel option: zoom, scroll, brush size or rotate"...AND that they might have included some indicator of which you were in (that would have been an appropriate use of small LEDs I'd argue) if you have the screen-dialogue subtitles shut off because they get real annoying real quick... but it's not a deal-breaker.The XP-Pen software that shipped with the ACK05 I went ahead and updated and it does a good job of making all the options for customization accessible. It was pretty easy to understand and I appreciate that you can orient the layout / buttons manager as displayed on the monitor same as how the ACK05 will physically rest on your desktop.I do not possess the technical expertise to comment on how the ACK05 might be better or worse than other keypads when it comes to the robustness or flexibility of the software and coding, but I will say its been working really well for me between my PC and Apple systems and I have thus far had no problems with it.If I had any quirks to address, it might be that I wish the buttons were a slightly lighter color than the black body of the ACK05 so they'd be easier to see...but as mentioned, that is easily and quickly remedied with application of stickers. XP-Pen does include some in the packaging, but I found it more fun to make my own.In conclusion I think the XP-Pen ACK05 is a very good deal for a handy little keypad that does work well and doesn't cost a lot of money.I've been happy with mine, it's proven to be a little workhorse that lets me get things done more easily.

This thing is pretty good for the price. It's built well and feels like a quality product. It's not heavy but feels solid. The cable stayed plugged in without issue. The keys feel good to press and never had an issues with them.The software that comes with it is really great too. There are plenty of macro pads for sale on Amazon that are cheaper or have more dials and better layouts but none of them come with real software for programming then so you are stuck with what you get. This thing comes with excellent software that lets you program every key and even program the knob (between zooming or scrolling). You can set 4 different options and then switch between them which makes it like having 4x as many keys.It also has an excellent feature that lets you program the keys for specific programs, so a key can serve as a shortcut to launch your calculator when you're in word but then serve as a shortcut key for the selection tool when you're on Photoshop.Works wired or through Bluetooth. Works flawlessly on windows 11 and on the two Linux machines I used it with. It does need to be reprogrammed when switching from a Windows to Linux machine but they have the programming software for Linux on their website and it works just as good as on windows. The only thing that doesn't work on Ubuntu or Debian is the Bluetooth so it has to be used wired, which is fine.I wish they provided a way to differentiate the keys since they aren't marked. I am going to just print some labels to stick on them myself.Great product that is better than more expensive macro pads I've tried. This is the best one I've found on Amazon.

Short version: all the customization you'll ever use, nice size and build quality, intermittent connectivity issues via Bluetooth but solved by turning off and on again or just running it with the included USB-C cable plugged in all the time. Mac compatible.Long version: I needed a way to move some of the typical right-hand only keys on my keyboard over to my left hand in order to make workflow more streamlined. I run the keypad on the left side of my keyboard. I've got the arrow keys programmed onto the new keypad as well as several other functions like Enter, Space, Minimize window, and search (Cmd + F) which is super convenient, being able to keep my right hand on the mouse and use my left for keystrokes.The scroll wheel I have programmed for tab switching for my browser. The wheel is highly sensitive, so not much movement is required for input.Easy enough to program the keys through the XP Pen app, way more options than you would ever need to program, even in a complex app. I wouldn't be able to remember what keys did what if you programmed it more than one level down (there are 4 levels of button programming, meaning you can program 4 sets of functions for EACH button plus the wheel and switch between them). It recognizes which app you're using and switches to your programmed button layout automatically for that app if you've set up different layouts for different apps.The reason it doesn't get 5 stars is because of the Bluetooth connectivity. After a few hours of use, the keypad will start "double tapping" each time you push a button or turn the wheel one click. Meaning for each single physical push of a button, it will interpret it as two pushes. So you have to turn off the keypad, quit the app, relaunch it and turn the keypad back on, which all takes maybe 10 sec, but still rather annoying. It's not enough to discontinue use though, and this doesn't happen when you have it hard lined into your computer via USB-C cable.Overall the keypad is great, app is awesome and programming is as simple as it could be. Highly recommended product. I couldn't find a better product at this price point.