Second Attempt To "Take A Back Seat" Succeeds! (Logitech Cordless Desktop EX 110)

Member Name: Nibelung

Product:	Logitech Cordless Desktop EX 110
Date:	06/06/09 (30 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Works well away from the PC.Excellent mouse accuracy. Good tactile keys

Disadvantages: Slightly flimsy?

I am now on my second cordless keyboard in as many months.

The good news is that the Logitech Cordless Desktop EX110 is the good guy, not the villain of the piece.

I've been building a Media Centre PC, i.e. using a 'freebie' desktop base unit that I'd come by for services rendered* as the donor system, hiding it behind my Panasonic panel TV.

(*Don't even ask)

Why?

Well partly just because 'I can' and know how to, and partly because, now equipped with a TV capable of acting as a PC monitor, either via its HDMI or VGA inputs, I can now watch 'catch-up' TV like BBC iPlayer or 4-On-Demand via a full-sized 37" 16:9 screen rather than huddle round a more normal PC.

I can also now grab programmes from my Freeview recorder, via its USB port and turn them into DVDs on the media PC, courtesy of its DVD burner.

I can also slob-out and surf from the sofa, and that's when the trouble started.

First attempts to sit away from the TV i.e. at a normal viewing distance on the sofa were thwarted by the exquisite-looking but ineffective Toshiba cordless keyboard about which I'm straining to write.

Having resigned myself to wasting the 30 quid spent on it, I resolved to spend less on its replacement. It was in Tesco's that I spotted the Logitech Cordless Desktop EX 110 selling for a very reasonable £19.95 (beating Amazon's price by a staggering £30). The only major difference (apart from hopefully working properly!) was the fact that it was a tad less stylish, and sported a separate optical mouse, not a built-in mousepad.

Unpacking it revealed the keyboard, the mouse, two sets of batteries (well mine had one as I'd not spotted the fact that the carton had been opened by some light-fingered so-and-so), a software CD-ROM and the transmitter/receiver that plugs into the PC and fools it into thinking that a mouse and a keyboard are physically 'there'.

INSTALLATION

To be honest there's hardly anything to it. You plug in the mouse and keyboard leads from the transmitter. The mouse comes with an adapter so that it can be either a USB or a PS/2 connection, whereas the keyboard is strictly 'PS/2'. Making sure that the batteries are installed, you boot up the PC and....well, that's about it really. The instructions tell you how to tune the mouse and keyboard to the transmitter, but mine worked first time, out of the box.

It's worth planting the transmitter/receiver where you can see it as it carries LED reminders for the CAPS and NUM locks - there are none on the keyboard to help preserve its batteries for actual keystrokes.

The CD-ROM doesn't really do much except take ages to install. Adjustments to the mouse speed and double click can still be made in Windows Control Panel without it, and since it will also run using standard Windows drivers, you have to ask yourself why you need something that can check for new Logitech drivers.

PERFORMANCE - SOFA SO GOOD

The salient point is; would it work ten feet away on the sofa?

Yes it would, unlike its predecessor.

In fact it will work so far back from the telly that you can't even see what you've typed, which to my mind leaves it plenty of latitude for weakening batteries and the like.

I've liked optical mice since they were invented. I've tested some under the most trying of conditions - like on a table of a First Great Western High-Speed Train, strewn with coffee puddles and blueberry muffin crumbs! The Logitech one won't be subject to anything like such an arduous assault course, but the fabric of the sofa is plenty for it to track the fact that it's on the move. Even your trousered leg works as a mouse mat.

The mouse has most of what you'd want. Three buttons (the third being a press on the scroll-wheel), and the ability to hold a web page and float gently down it giving you time to read.

The full 105-key keyboard has all the usual extra Microsoft add-on keys, like the Windows start-up key and so on. You can take short cuts straight to your default e-mail client and browser and control basic DVD/CD playing functions, including sound levels.

The keys are standard UK layout with the Euro symbol available from a combination of the right-hand 'ALT' and '4' buttons. The keys press like 'real office' ones, not those found on a laptop. Design is compact with none of the more usual spare 'flesh' around the edges which suits me fine. After all, this is to be a glorified 'remote control', not an ergonomically-designed wrist-saver.

The build quality seems fine. Yes it creaks if you twist it, but then so does my Microsoft keyboard on my main PC.

The all black appearance won't suit everyone but when placed in front of the TV waiting to be used, it looks like a 'proper' accessory.

All in all, a good purchase, especially at that price.

Summary: Cordless keyboard and mouse set, capable ofMmedia Centre usage.

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