Speaking of HTPCs, it's interesting how computers are becoming more and more popular in the living room. Such computers are great for home theater PC setups if you're not after something like 1080p Blu-ray decoding. Products built around Atom processors are also propagating the market quickly - from the Asus Eee Box to the Shuttle X27. Such products have lead to the creation of Nettop computers a range of computers that are not only value oriented, but also features a low running cost. During the past six months, things in the technology world have changed quite a bit - for example, the introduction of the dual core Intel Atom 330, increasingly common usage of Mini ITX boards, and in general, low(er) cost computing products. It’s not a great fit for me, but if I needed a keyboard for a media center PC, I’d consider getting this one.It has been over half a year since we last reviewed a keyboard, the last time being the APH Recommended Logitech MX5500 Revolution by Jonathan. It would be great for that, of course, but its not something I do with my computer on a regular basis. I’m also not as big on controlling media from my keyboard. What’s the verdict for $74.99 US? I like the wire-free operation, but it’s not necessary as I’m usually sitting at a desk anyway. I also find some keys are put in somewhat odd spots, which often happens when keyboards are made smaller. This is not a unique problem to this keyboard as I find that many modern keyboards suffer from this “mushmellow” syndrome. I find that certain keys on this keyboard tend to require a bit more force to ensure they register properly, like the right shift key and the spacebar. for left and right clicks) instead of being on the opposite side of the keyboard from the trackball! They work well enough, but I would have preferred the buttons to be to either side of the trackball (e.g. The other important feature this keyboard has is a track bar, scroll wheel, and mouse. There are also a row of 8 buttons along the top that don’t appear to do anything on the Mac, but are supposedly for Windows Media Center. The channel buttons seem to function as a sort of page-up/page-down kind of thing. Surprisingly, most of these keys actually work on iTunes on the Mac just fine. The keyboard has some media keys to control audio, the TV channel, and the volume. Supposedly it works up to 100 feet away, but unless you had Frank’s 2000 inch TV hooked up to your computer, I doubt you could actually see what you were typing on the computer from that far away. I haven’t noticed any interference problems as of yet, but the keyboard and mouse are less than 1 foot apart in my normal usage. It communicates with the keyboard over 2.4 Ghz, which is also used by Bluetooth and WiFi. The unit comes with a USB dongle that blinks blue whenever you push keys on your keyboard. It is geared for people with media center PCs, though it works ok with my Mac as well. You either like them or you don’t and there is plenty of wiggle room depending on what is important to you.Īdesso’s PR firm sent me a Wireless Media Center Keyboard with Optical Trackball to review.
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