Digital Trends

Microsoft Wireless Entertainment Desktop 8000 December 13th, 2007 | by Josh Norem

Features and Design

Microsoft has gone all out with its latest wireless keyboard and mouse combo, dubbed the Entertainment Desktop 8000. It is designed to function as a desktop keyboard, or a lapboard for couch surfing, and it’s comprised of three distinct components: The wireless keyboard, wireless laser mouse, and a USB hub with built-in Bluetooth. Let’s take a look at each of these components. 

The Keyboard

The keyboard is a very attractive piece of hardware, made of silver plastic with metallic-looking keys arranged in a slight V configuration for comfort. It houses four rechargeable AA batteries. The left-side of the keyboard features media control buttons including volume control, play/pause, channel up and down and so forth. The edge of the keyboard sports a button to activate the Vista Sidebar, a magnifier button and mouse controls for lap use.

The keyboard is small and thin, and is surprisingly comfortable

The right edge of the keyboard is lacking a number pad, and in its place there are buttons for Windows Media Center, a “back” button for web surfing, and a switchable touchpad that can be toggled to be touch sensitive or jus follow click commands for up, down, left and right.

The top of the keyboard features the usually Function keys, but there are interestingly, just little touch-sensitive areas of the keyboard rather than actual buttons. Just brush your finger on the key area to activate the function. The F1-F4 keys have shortcuts that are activated via the Fn key to open My Pictures, My Music, Internet Explorer and Live Messenger.

The backlighting is a soft silver color and looks incredibly elegant. It can be adjusted manually via Fn keys to either turn it off, turn it down, or turn it all the way up.

It’s also important to note that Microsoft has moved the Windows key from its usual position to the bottom, center of the keyboard. This is a decision that makes absolutely no sense to us at all unless you are someone who never uses the Windows key and its associated shortcuts.

The Mouse

The Wireless Laser Mouse 8000 is an ambidextrous mouse that is wireless, rechargeable and communicates to the base station via Bluetooth. It’s a five-button mouse that includes the standard left, right and mouse buttons as well as a button on each side of the mouse. The default config has the button on the left side perform “back” while web surfing, while the button on the right defaults to a magnify window that opens when you press it. The Wireless Laser Mouse 8000 uses laser technology and features a sensitivity level of 1000dpi.

The ambidextrous 8000 Laser mouse is accurate enough, but it is not a gaming mouse

The USB Hub and Charging Station

Easily the most unique feature of this product is the small USB hub and charging station. It’s a small little brick that plugs into a USB port and is powered via an AC adapter. It features four USB ports and slides over the upper edge of the keyboard to recharge it. You can also rest the mouse on top of it to recharge the mouse. Underneath it are four powered USB ports, though one is occupied at all times by the Bluetooth receiver that the mouse uses. Here’s how it looks with everything attached.

The charger rests on top of the keyboard, contains four USB ports, and charges the mouse too