I have purchased this a few times for a number of media centre systems I have built for people. I also have one for my media centre, which I use alongside the Microsoft remote.

This makes general surfing and package exploring a much more comfortable and efficient experience than attempting to use a keyboard and mouse where a suitable surface me not be available.

It is plug and play, so all you need to do is insert the little USB reciever in your computer and within a few seconds you are ready to go! Its perfectly responsive, the keys are very responsive, and the glide pad is excellent and a good size.

I have had the item about 2 years now and have had to replace the batteries about 3 times (fairly cheap batteries), so I would say you are looking at a battery lifetime of around 6 months give or take.

One thing should be mentioned though, be careful where you place the USB reciever, for 2 reasons. The first is that if you put it in a USB slot at the rear of you system it may not pick up all keyboard inputs sometimes, and the other reason is that if you put it at the front, make sure its out of the way of you bumping or standing on it. This has happened once or twice to me and its just lucky I havnt broken the reciever, as it is fairly weak, and it could snap from the port quite easily, rendering the whole setup useless.