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Comment by randallsquared | Hacker News Reader

Yes, the K750 is a great substitute for Apple keyboards when you need to use Windows as well (on non-Apple hardware; the bootcamp drivers Did Not Like that). It has nearly the same feel for me as the standalone Apple keyboard, and was where I settled after years of buying keyboards in the hopes that this one got it right. The solar-powered wireless aspect is just gravy.

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I wish they sold a battery powered variant. I've had several die. It's a great keyboard to type on though.

I also bought an Apple Magic Keyboard for use with my iPad and it's great as well. Very similar feel and small footprint.

You could just replace the battery inside it...

True, but the battery inside isn't one that you are going to be able to get from the front desk at your hotel. I still would prefer one powered by AA or AAA batteries.

Turns out that you can pop a normal (non-rechargeable) CR2032 in the K750 to replace the rechargeable ML2032 that's already in there. Pretty decent chance of a CR2032 being at the hotel front desk or at the corner store. However, if you do that, it's important that you disable the solar-recharge feature, perhaps by taping over the solar cells.

After having my K750 for about three years, the ML2032 stopped accepting a charge, which made the keyboard nonfunctional. I did the ML2032->CR2032 replacement, put black tape over the solar cells, and the K750 came back to life. That was about a year ago with 8+ hours per day of use, and the CR2032 is still going strong.

It feels like the crappy battery is a pretty serious flaw to an otherwise fantastic product. Since the energy requirements for something like the K750 are pretty modest, I wonder if they considered super capacitors instead of a traditional battery?

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