Logical Logitech?! (Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5000 Laser)

Member Name: Claire_DC

Product:	Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5000 Laser
Date:	20/11/08 (152 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to set up, easy to use, mouse is fantastic, all singing all dancing, great customer service

Disadvantages: All singing all dancing?, Update needed to get to work properly.

My fiancé and I both owned Logitech keyboard and mouse sets (MX700 Duo) for years but they had started to play up a while back; these sets had lasted a long time and we were more than happy with them the whole time we'd used them. I rang up Logitech to see if they could help to sort the problem, or replace (at my own cost) as I would have replaced them with the same set but could not find anywhere to purchase them brand new. I was told that the set wasn't being manufactured anymore but that they could certainly run through some tests and actions to see if they could help resolve the problem.

After running through the tests, I was told that this was probably not an issue that could be resolved but that they could send me out replacements and offered me another of their desktop keyboard and mouse combination packs; the problem being that it didn't have a charging station like my MX700 duo had, and this was a very important factor to me as it can be a pain to keep fiddling around changing batteries when needing to be charged. I explained this to the person helping me and they said that it was fine and that they could send me this set instead. I was online at the time so had a look at the set and it looked great, but had a price tag of over £100. I mentioned this to them and said I'd have a think about it, but they explained back to me that the sets would be sent out free of charge as it was a replacement for a product that they no longer supplied. I was really shocked as I didn't think the product was still in warranty but I wasn't going to complain, so accepted the offer and the sets came within a week. It's taken me a few months to get around to setting them up due to also decorating in the house (and still doing so) but I've finally managed it, so thought I'd post up my thoughts.

My background above may seem a little off topic, but I felt it worth a mention to show my thoughts about/dealings with Logitech previously with their products and also their customer service skills. I have to say that I was especially impressed with Logitech customer service and would feel no hesitation in recommending Logitech on this basis alone. Now I shall go back to the main product that I am reviewing!

I haven't written a review for a while, partly due to being in pain but also because I've been getting used to the new set that they sent me, and thought I should spend some time getting used to the feel of them before trying to sit and write anything at length due to the stress factor that this could provide. You may wonder how it could be such a different experience, when surely keyboards aren't that much different; and normally you'd be correct as most basic keyboards are generally not too different! This set however has new functions and a slightly different layout to what I have been used to, so a bit of time spent getting used to it should hopefully pay off in the long run.

The first thing I am going to mention, as it'd quite possibly one of the most noticeable things on the keyboard is that it has an LCD display which displays information such as your name (in case you forget it?), the date/time, any incoming mail, and songs you are playing on your media player at any given point. Obviously if you have no new email or are not playing any music then it just shows your name, the time and date as standard.

There is also a menu option on the display which lets you play your play and radio lists from within the display and I believe also allows you to assign smart keys for things such as Bluetooth, 'home', control panel and SetPoint (Logitech settings utility) so that you can access them with the push of one button. To be honest I don't see myself using any of those as I don't think it's much extra effort to find things manually and this saves any hassle I may encounter if I had these buttons assigned and kept accidently pushing them as my hands fly all over the keyboard pretty quickly and not always with any clear direction; this may not be such a problem for the people who type with flair and consistency though haha.

On the far left of the side, next to the keys on the keyboard is a touch sensitive control area; this allows you to open your default media player by lightly touching the bit where it says 'media' and then it also has forward, back, play/pause and stop just underneath to control which tracks are played. It has a further 2 touch sensitive actions, one being a volume control for your media and the other is a zoom control which allows you to zoom in on web pages and other programmes on your computer.

All these are useful, but I would also stress that it is SO easy to knock any bit of it when typing, especially as I don't have any flair to my typing so I find my little finger constantly drops to rest right on those buttons which means that anything can happen whilst I'm in the middle of doing something; my media centre could open, my song being played could change or stop, the volume could shoot up or down and if I am on a webpage or even on this word document right now, it would zoom in or out. This is really annoying and I can't help but think they should have had a bit more space between the keys and the touch sensitive area as there's currently only a few millimetres. I know this is partly down to my style of typing but they need to be aware that there are many people like me who don't type in the 'proper' way and make a slight allowance for that!

The next thing I will mention is that there doesn't appear to be a number lock key, it seems to be replaced with a 'clear/calc' button which if pressed will allow you to use a basic calculator within the LCD display I mentioned above. Having this enabled means that you can't use the numbers on the number pad area of the keyboard - much like if you had 'num lock' off on a normal keyboard.

Along with the side touch screen area; there are quite a lot of other buttons that can be used to get to various parts of your computer with the touch of one button. These include, but are not limited to media, library, sync (to sync your phone/Bluetooth devices to pc), email, messenger, messenger status, webcam and sleep (standby). There are also secondary functions for the F buttons that can be accessed when yhou click the 'MODE [F]' button, these include word, excel, PowerPoint, back/forward, print and save.

I tend not to use these very much to be honest, some people may find them to be more useful so I do think they serve a purpose but I'm of the opinion that it only takes me a couple of seconds to get to my email, and even less time to use my mouse buttons to click back and forward so there's no point in me trying to train myself to work any differently or spending time pressing F mode on, and then F mode off again for when I need to use the F keys for different functions.

The keyboard is a relatively quiet one, although certainly not the quietest, it feels fairly 'soft' to the touch and the keys are easily pushed, so you don't have to put full pressure on them to get them to work. This has the advantage of you not having to force them down, but the disadvantage that sometimes you can hit a key accidently or touch a bit too hard and it type the letter in twice.

If you hit the caps lock key it makes a beep and flashes on the screen, which means if you're anything like me and you hit it constantly, that you know instantly and don't end up with words in capitals that need altering back to small case. There is also a noise when you get a new email which can be quite useful, but if you find it annoying I believe it can be turned off within the settings programme.

There's also a layout difference to normal keyboards (or at least the ones I have used) with the insert, home, end, delete, page up and page down block of buttons; the insert key has been relocated to next to the pause/print screen keys and the delete button has grown in size to take up 2 key spaces. It took a couple of hours of getting used to but now I quite like it this way!

You do need a spare USB port to be able to use the mouse and keyboard set as it comes with a Bluetooth dongle that allows the mouse and keyboard to be recognised on your computer. I think this is a much better option than having the mouse charger working also as a receiver as this used to mean that the connection would drop a bit more than it does with the new set; and also means that the only wire involved is a power lead from the mouse charger to the mains socket, instead of adding in a USB lead from the charger/receiver unit and I think personally that the less wires going into my computer, the better.

The mouse is a laser mouse and comes with a recharging stand; unlike previous wireless devices I have had this has its own internal battery and doesn't require standard AA rechargeable batteries. It has a battery gage to show you how the battery is doing (also available on your windows toolbar) which means that you know when you need to recharge it so you're not running out of power when using it which can be VERY annoying.

The side of the mouse has 3 buttons, 2 that are used for going forwards/backwards on web pages, and the middle one that brings up a menu of all the processes you have open so you can switch between them through that. On the top of the mouse it has the usual left and right buttons, plus 2 buttons that move pages (web, word documents etc) up and down, and a scroll wheel that also moves the pages up and down but a bit slower. The scroll wheel also has the ability to be moved left to right so if there's a web page that has been made badly and you have to scroll horizontally as well as vertically, it's a bit easier to do so. It also can be pushed down which activates the zoom function which is then navigated by using the scroll to zoom in/out.

It's a comfortable mouse to use and fits snugly into your hand; it even has a rest for your thumb. Obviously this is a right handed mouse primarily and although I'm sure could be used by left handed people, it may be a bit more difficult so I'd contact Logitech to see if they do left handed versions of this.

Both the mouse and keyboard have off switches, which will save battery life and conserve energy as it means you don't have to constantly recharge (and thus don't have to have the mouse charger plugged in constantly either) so it would make sense to plug the mouse charger in somewhere that is accessible to unplug as and when needed. Another plus point to not having the mouse charging unit also working as a receiver, I feel. They also both have connect buttons, which allows you to re-establish connection to the dongle if you feel they are lagging or not working like they should be at any given point.

I had a problem using the mouse forward and back keys when I had the Logitech SetPoint tool open, in that it wouldn't make my web pages go forwards/backwards as it was meant to (and was set to within settings) but not having the software open meant that my keyboard didn't show the information it was meant to. I finally found out that updating within the SetPoint programme (top tools tab, and then middle side tab) rectified this problem and my keyboard and mouse both worked perfectly. If you encounter the same problem try this, but if it doesn't sort it then you're probably going to have to contact Logitech and use the set without the SetPoint open in the windows toolbar.

I've noticed that when I restart my computer that it asks me to reconnect the Bluetooth devices, it doesn't take a great deal of time but I think is a bit excessive, but if that's what keeps my mouse and keyboard working to the best they can then I don't mind.

Overall this set is a decent set that was easy to set up, and gives a pleasurable typing and mouse experience; with a few problems it's not perfect but the problems are manageable ones.

Summary: A decent set from Logitech.

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