This is a top-quality 19-key numeric keypad, imported from Japan. It's black or silver, precision engineered, comfortable to work with, and has an easy positive action comparable with the best notebooks.

It measures 85mm x 130mm x 22mm, and has a fixed 0.8 metre cable ending in a USB A plug. It needs a USB port, but no installation or configuration.

A numeric keypad is useful if you do accounts or spreadsheet work, particulary on a notebook where the numbers are in a row at the top and the mathematical functions usually need the SHIFT key, or you have to use the NUMLOCK key.

For occasional number-work, this is just inconvenient. For extended number-work, you can use the NUMLOCK key but, as a group of fifteen letters will then only generate numbers and mathematical functions, normal typing is impossible.

It uses pantographic key technology: the entire key top is supported by the pantograph structure, so a vertical stroke occurs even when a key is hit off-center, making typing comfortable. The case has rubber feet to stop it sliding, or marking your desktop.

On connection, a driver is automatically installed which separates the number locks on the main keyboard and numeric keypad. This leaves the keyboard as an alphanumeric but provides all the numbers and mathematical functions on the keypad, so they can be used independently.