The Underrated Feature of Physical Keyboards You Should Use More

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When choosing a new keyboard, most people focus on the design, including switch types, overall layout, lighting effects, and other minor features. To be fair, all of this East important. But there’s another aspect of physical keyboards that gets overlooked and, frankly, it’s something everyone should use more of. These are the dedicated media keys for pausing, playing, skipping tracks and adjusting volume. Even keyboards that don’t have physical keys for each of these commands often have a function key (Fn) that you can use as a secondary option: you press the function key and another in combination.

The dedicated keys, however, are truly the cream of the crop. The problem is that when switching to a smaller physical keyboard, manufacturers often omit these extra buttons to save space. The same goes for physical keyboards, perfect for use while traveling or on the go; they are compact and eliminate many additional functions in lieu of a portable profile, such as removing the side number pad. You almost have to look for physical keyboards that specifically have media keys built into them. The Razer Huntsman V3, Redragon K512, and HyperX Alloy Core are all examples of boards with dedicated keys. They’re also available at different price points, showing that you don’t necessarily need to go for an expensive or ultra-premium model to find this feature.

But why multimedia keys? It’s simple, they make media control a lot easier and you don’t need to go back to the screen to understand when a command is working. You can use them while doing other things like playing games, watching online videos, or even manipulating your background media during a meeting.

In Windows 11, media key notifications don’t show up, so you never really know when a key was pressed, especially if it’s combined with an Fn key. If you’re looking at the standard desktop as you press keys, it’s no big deal, but if you have something else open, like a game, meeting, or video, it can be difficult to tell if you’ve pressed the wrong button combination or when a keyboard shortcut isn’t registered. Dedicated keys fix this problem as they are the only keys for that specific function, whether you are trying to pause playback or change tracks.

There are of course workarounds. There are apps that add notifications, macro tools to customize key presses, and separate media and macro pads that add dedicated buttons for whatever you set, like Elgato Stream Deck. The latter is certainly a practical computer gadget that will speed up your daily tasks and your most used functions. But even with these alternatives, the most practical solution is to simply plug in and use a physical keyboard with dedicated media keys.

This is the easiest, as you don’t have to configure or configure anything other than plugging the keyboard into an available USB port. Plus, it’s natively supported by Windows 11, works seamlessly to control all media from music and videos to photo slideshows, and you have plenty of freedom to find a keyboard that suits your interests, whether you opt for a mechanical model or a more traditional basic keyboard.