The Microsoft Wireless Entertainment Desktop 7000 (Microsoft Wireless Entertainment Desktop 7000)

Member Name: iforgot

Product:	Microsoft Wireless Entertainment Desktop 7000
Date:	20/05/09 (21 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Bluetooth, lasts forever on one charge

Disadvantages: Supplied battery for the mouse is a throwaway and replace

The Microsoft Wireless Entertainment Desktop 7000, I bought this early last year after a sucession of previous keyboards and mice left this place in search of somewhere quiet to die.

At its heart its simply a bluetooth dongle, a bluetooth keyboard, and a bluetooth mouse. It comes packed with a driver / application cd.

Installation is quick and painless, I used windows xp and found that the bluetooth dongle was quickly automatically recognised without the need for any intervention or driver loading.

The keyboard is powered by 4 AA sized batteries, these fit into the keyboards top edge either side of the bluetooth logo (which is also the flashing light for connection), once in the weight of the keyboard is nicely balanced and im able to use it balanced on my lap a with ease.

Connection to the dongle is easy. The bluetooth dongle has a small button on the end of it, simple hold it down till the light on the dongle flashes. Underneath the keyboard is a simular button hold it down for a few seconds, and then the keyboard connects. Connection of the mouse happens in the same way (a button under the mouse).

At this stage the keyboard and mouse will both work just like a normal keyboard. The extra features on the keyboard such as the media keys work but some wont. If you dont need them, or want them then your done and you can enjoy what is a very nice keyboard to type on. Other wise pop in the cd that came with it, and program up those buttons.

The mouse comes with 1 aa recharable battery. Which to be honest is useless. I found that it didnt really hold its charge very well when not in use. Eg. Fully charged mouse is left idle for a day or two NOT on the docking pad, it quickly goes flat. Where as i have replaced the supplied battery with a store bought uniross aa recharable, (same capacity) and it now works perfectly. The mouse charges up from flat to full in about 2 hours, once charged i dont need to recharge it for several weeks. To the point where the docking pad isnt plugged into the mains (to save money no need to run a stepdown for weeks on end for no reason) unless the mouse starts to warn of being flat.

The mouse itself has a very impressive feel and build quaility to it. The scroll wheel also has tilt side to side as well as down click, but this is built solidly and you never push side to side by mistake. The two extra side buttons are fully programable if you want to use them, to the point where inside diffrent application they do diffrent things. This is very usefull. Inside firefox i have them set to forward and backward, but in work i have them set to copy and paste :).

The range of both from the pc is the full 10 meters of bluetooth and at times works upto 12ish meters so more than ample.

The keyboard also has a small touch bad, that has a physical toggle switch. The pad itself is soft of a d pad movement, up down, left and right with a small movement, which controls like the arrow keys, or flip the switch and it works like a mouse touchpad on a laptop to move the mouse cursor. At the other side of the keyboard is two buttons nice and large and easy to tap with your right hand that work as left and right click of the mouse.

This all sounds very nice, but in reality if your doing a lot of typing and need to just click one button or the like, you hand only has to move a few inches and your done. Much quicker then reaching and grabbing the mouse.

The touch buttons esc - f1-f12, + the home delete ect etc keys are very sensitive. The lightest touch makes them go off. F11 i hate. I dont seam able to type number 0 without hitting it. Really annoying but no longer an issue time soon solved that one!

Over all for the money in my opinion an unbeatable desktop solution. factor in that you get a bluetooth donge which in a high street store will set you back £20, and the whole lot costs now around £45 online, and its not only well made, easy to use, its also dam good value for money!

Summary: For the money unbeatable, i will replace this one with annother one if it ever dies!

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