Digital Trends

An amazing wireless combination, but a bit pricy.

by Clyde on Sep 5th, 2008 at 5:04 PM:

I bought this combo because I wanted the MX Revolution mouse, but this is the only version of it that supports bluetooth (my laptop has an integrated radio), so I got the keyboard as well.

The mouse, if you haven't already heard about it, has an extremely interesting mousewheel. The wheel has two types of scrolling, free spinning (AMAZING for reading long documents and web pages), and regular click scrolling. The set point software that comes with this mouse allows you to set which mode you want (it is possible to disable shifting, and reenable the middle mouse click button), as well as enabling an auto-shift feature (my favorite setting), so that it clicks at slow speeds and then auto shifts to free spin when you scroll faster.

The mouse is 800 dpi I believe and very smooth in use, but it is extremely sensitive to what kind of surface it is used on. It likes some fabric mousepads, but not others, likes some types of paper, not others, but usually hates wood with visible grain. It takes a while to go to sleep, so jitteryness after a period of non-movement is rare. It can be used for gaming, as long as the right surface is used.

The mouse has two side buttons, a side to side rocker on the mousewheel, a fast search button which is not but not always useful, and a second thumbwheel with forward, back, and click (which by default uses flip3d in Vista). It has a non-replacable li-on battery, which for me lasts about a week before it needs a recharge. Recharging is extremely rapid, and can occur in about 30 minutes from completely drained. With light use, the battery is supposed to last 15 days.

The combo includes a bluetooth adapter, which seems to have very good range and immediately recognizes the keyboard and mouse. I have not tried it, but I doubt the keyboard can be used to enter BIOS, even with the adapter.

The keyboard was just an additional bonus for me, but it turns out to be another great logitech product. The keys are very, very quiet and have a great feel. The keyboard has a screen with 6 items to display; time & date, media control (synched with WMP), temperature (why?), quick open shortcuts (media player, search, word processing, control panel), key counter, and email notification/count. The keyboard also has a bunch of extra shortcut keys and function keys.

The last notable feature of the keyboard is the keyboard calculator. You hit a button, and suddenly, the screen on the keyboard becomes a calculator screen, and the keypad allows you to use it as a basic calculator. Add/sub/mult/divide, it isn't perfect, but great for quick calculations when you don't want to get a calculator or open MS calculator up.

Really, the only sticky point on this combo is the price, but this is probably one of the best combos of keyboard and mouse you can buy for quality.