 Great keyboard, great mouse. |
| Review Date: January 24, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Mr. E. Ball, Edinburgh, UK |
Though some reviews I read call the keyboard "awkward" and even "faulty", and the mouse "an attempt at an ambidextrous mouse" - I can hand on heart tell you that in my experience, this is false. Perhaps this is due to the fact that I have developed a weird skill which rather than using the shift key for capital letters, I use the caps lock ON and then OFF. This of course eliminates the annoyance of a small shift key on the right hand side, which is a pretty minor issue. Now for the products themselves:
THE KEYBOARD.
The keyboard types like a dream - the keys are soft and quiet to type on and whilst some say the odd shape and differing sizes is a bad thing - it is really simple to get to use it. The layout is deemed "ergonomic" which I found means essentially that it reduces RSI for constant typer's. Though I don't use it much, I can certainly see how this would benefit as the keyboard has a really comfortable feel to it ("comfort curve" technology", made better by the leather hand rest which is in front of the whole keyboard. The shortcuts are actually really handy - there is a magnifying shortcut, as well as several browsing shortcuts. One of the nicest additions I found was the music section - there are seven keys devoted to music player - your bog standard FF/RW and then mute, volume etc. Theses were actually REALLY handy when dealing with a busy set of applications and just wanting to quickly change the song. The F-LOCK is a handy idea as well - many of the F keys are rarely used, and this allows some great features to be accessed quickly and efficiently! Other than that, you'll be really shocked at how handy the two keys on the top right come in handy - a calculator button (which avoids the START/PROGRAMS/ACCESSORIES/CALCULATOR routine, and a handy LOCK button, meaning if you need a break you simply tap a button and the computer will password lock itself - an extremely handy feature. The battery status indicator is handy, and the lifetime is around 6 months, which is about bang accurate I'd say. Though many argue with this keyboard about signal and the small keys, it really is a personal preference issue that they have. If people want a keyboard that types well, has an array of handy shortcuts (ones that you ACTUALLY use!), a comfortable feel to it, quiet keys and a good battery life, this really is a viable option - HIGHLY recommended.
THE MOUSE.
I feel that I should be writing about the same for the two products, but there just isn't much to write about a mouse with a select few buttons. The mouse is really great - we'll start with the front. The two bog standard R/L buttons have a really nice click to them, and is comfortable for constantly clicking (gaming especially). The wheel is ULTRA soft and has such a nice scroll feel to it, as well as the addition of side scrolling. I find myself using the side scroll hardly ever, but when I do it is not really smooth, but jitters along. This is such a minor problem it's not really worth talking about, but if you want an independent review I will give one - if you use side scrolling as little as me (who 'restores' all their windows anyway?), you'll never notice this. Key to the wheel is the addition of the window changer, whereby clicking in the scroll wheel will give you a picture of all your open windows, and allows you to simply click on a window to change to that application. This ACTUALLY WORKS ON XP! Amazing that they included this feature - it works just like the Mac OSX way of changing windows, with a 2D grid to choose from. The side buttons are really quite handy, the left providing browsing buttons and the right providing a handy magnifier. Surprisingly, you will use this - it is SO handy for pictures, and works JUST like the normal START/PROGRAMS/ACCESSORIES/ACCESSIBILITY/MAGNIFIER one, except at the touch of a button. The mouse is really comfortable for BOTH left handers and right handers, and the signal strength is really good as well (the battery life compliments its label of "6 MONTHS", following the keyboard.
OVERALL VERDICT.
Buy it, if you want an affordable, comfortable, effortless and handy keyboard that wont cause you hassle with signal strength, and wont cause you hassle with battery life. It is ultra easy to set up, and provides some really great shortcuts that (despite my previous stereotypes), you will actually put to some use! Great desktop set. |
wireless keyboard and mouse
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| Review Date: December 1, 2009 |
| Reviewer: R. Proudfoot, Staines, England |
| very easy to set up and use. very comfortable, even for a four fingered typist like myself. looks good too. |
Very good package but Vista user beware!
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| Review Date: July 13, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Arun D, Essex, England |
Firstly, the keyboard and mouse themselves...
Mouse it comfy for left handers like me and very accurate, with assignable shortcut buttons on the sides. No worries there. Scrolling wheel is as smooth as you would expect
Keyboard takes some getting used to due the shape and oddly sized keys, but I think it's a matter if getting used to it with practice. I'm constantly making mistakes at the moment! It has a detachable wrist lift that goes on the bottom of the keyboard but i honestly can't see anyone using it, it makes things very awkward and un-natural. The large array of shortcut buttons are useful but i find the dedicated Vista gadgets button hardly works, but not something I would use regularly. Media keys don't work all that well either, unless the media player you use is the current active window. Otherwise, it tries to open real player on my PC!
One word of warning to Vista users, a common issue after connecting a variety of wireless packages is that you'll notice your screensaver fails to start anymore, as well as some power saving settings failing to work. Microsoft have acknowledged the fault and have released an update downloadable through windows update called "HID Non User Input Data Filter". Run windows update and you will find this under "optional hardware" updates. This fixes the screensaver and power saving issues. |
Badly Designed Keyboard Nice Mouse
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| Review Date: January 8, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Cw Johnson, London |
Having got fed up with wires trailing across my desk and the rest of the general clutter, I decided to go for a wireless keyboard and mouse. The Laser Desktop 5000 seemed like the best looking, and also it had the benefit of been optimised for Windows Vista.
But the proof is using the thing, not how good it looks. The mouse is well designed and fits into the hand perfectly, although I can see it been far too bulky for a child to use. The keyboard really lets this product down. With new batteries and only using it for less than an hour I had two messages appear saying that the signal was weak. The keyboard suffers from several MAJOR design flaws. Firstly, the little legs at the back of the keyboard we are all familiar with only levels the keyboard. A wrist rest at the front has plastic moulding underneath that prevents the front of the keyboard from been lowered, with no obvious means of removal. (I did eventually work out how to remove this which entails pulling it towards the keyboard and not away, using a fair amount of strength to wrench it free. Instructions would have been useful!). Some of the keys are far too small, with the letter "N" been twice as big as most of the others. The shift key on the left - which been a right-handed typest I use all the time - is even smaller, in fact so small it's easy to hit two keys at the same time, or worse yet to hit the caps lock. Anybody with big hands or fat fingers will find this keyboard completely unusable. There are no indicators for caps lock, numb lock or scroll lock. So when you start to type you have no idea if you will be in lower case or upper case. It's a very frustrating keyboard to use and will mean lots of repeated typing - because you haven't hit the shift key on the left, or because you're in caps and don't know it.
The extra function keys for opening folders, mail, faves, etc, are pretty generic for a keyboard of this type and don't offer anything to enhance your Vista experience. After several frustrating hours this product will be going back to the shop for an exchange. |
Do not bother
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| Review Date: September 15, 2009 |
| Reviewer: David Mac, london |
| Do not buy this product - there has to be better alternatives. I have absolutley no problem with the layout however my experience with the connectivity has been truly awful. However, if you have time to press the 'connect' button 50 times day then this is the keyboard for you. |
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