It's been a while since I've been active on ePinions - but this keyboard mouse combo was just the right motivation. Plus, what better way to test out the touch-typing comfort of a keyboard than write a review?

To start with, my exasperations - I have a wired Dell keyboard at work, and a new wireless Dell keyboard-mouse combo at home (came with a new desktop). Both are nicely functional - the one at home with multimedia buttons and a volume control (none of which I have felt the need to use). The wired keyboard at work - well, that's the one that comes with standard business desktops.

My primary issue with both - finger fatigue. By the time my day ends, my thumb joints go sore, and a number of my fingers as well. I need to do a lot of typing - but that has remained practically unchanged over the years. It just felt like keyboards - at least the ones that come free with desktops nowadays - are getting worse. Or I'm growing old, and all the years of torture on the joints are adding up.

A secondary issue was to go cordless at work - the ability to efficiently use a keyboard tray that slides under the table is directly dependent on the ability to have the keyboard and mouse cables out of the way when doing so. My mouse and keyboard cables were constantly fouling against my legs, and the mouse got kicked out of the tray many times as a result.

So, there- I was looking primarily for typing comfort over extended hours of use, and secondarily for wireless freedom. And, since this was going out of my pocket, something cheap. Definitely not the Logitech diNovo Edge at close to $200, whatever the bluetooth on it does.

Wireless freedom is pretty easy to search for - just type "wireless" in your search, and there you have it. Typing comfort - a whole different ball game. IBM does not make the "clickey" keyboards any longer - and just about every basic keyboard that mimics the "clickey" layout apparently has a complete misunderstanding of the importance of typing comfort on those golden oldies.

Hence, was forced to go offline - and walk over to the nearest store (J&R, in fact) - and get my hands dirty. The find - this Logitech EX110. Now that I have it, let's take a few minutes and go over what I like and what I don't.

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The Good
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1. Installation was a breeze. Batteries - 2AA, 2AAA - came in the box (thankfully), and I was up and running before I had time to look for a manual. Which, as with a lot of products nowadays, is not supplied as a hard copy- you have to read what's on the installation CD.

Anyway - I plugged in using the standard keyboard-mouse ports (why not USB?), rebooted the machine, and everything was A-OK.

2. Typing comfort - the keyboard still falls short of the old IBM clickey ones, but is definitely better than the Dells I was using. Keys are not as noisy, and take much less pressure to trigger. The return is shockless as well. The keys are laid out a little more flush than in my old Dell one, so the fingers have an easier time flying around them.

3. Tactile feedback: even with the semi-flush keys and the soft typing, this keyboard offers just the amount of tactile feedback I needed. I saw some soft flexible keyboards in the store - they were horrible beyond belief, if you are looking for something for regular use (I guess those are meant for specialized applications). This one, not so.

4. Mouse: Just realized I've not even mentioned the mouse till now. Well, this is a basic 2-button plus scroll wheel mouse, nothing special. The scroll wheel is a little tighter than the one I had on the Dell. Being optical, it's a lot easier to control. The wireless freedom is felt much more on the mouse than on the keyboard - it's really nice to be able to move the mouse to the tray, then to the desk when I need it, and here and there.

Right at start, I had some issues with the sensitivity of the mouse - the default setting seemed to make it fly across my monitors - but I calmed it down through the control panel settings, even before I installed the Logitech drivers.

5. Logitech enhancements - Installation of the software on the CD is required in order to get the "special features" on this combo, if you feel the need for them. Among them - an "enhanced mode" for function keys, shortcut buttons around the keyboard, and display of capslock - numlock - functionmode toggles on screen when a change happens. Plus, something called SetPoint to control the features on the keyboard and mouse.

Among all of these, I liked the display of caps/num/func mode change on the screen the best. It's easy to press the caps lock by mistake - and it's non-intuitive to have an eye on the little wireless receiver and check if the light has come on. An average touch typist would probably type through a few words before having to go back, switch the caps mode off, and change case. Then again, a good touch typist should never press caps lock by mistake - but let's not get there. Coming back to topic - it's really easy to figure out the mistake when the glowing green letters appear on the screen. Even with two monitors, I can easily detect the appearance of the toggle status information - at least enough to trigger a "something just went wrong" warning in my head.

The other features - allowing you to define the action that each of the "enhanced" buttons do - is pretty standard. If anyone were to force me to open Outlook when the email button is pressed - or Internet Explorer when I click on "My Home" - I'll not even consider that as a multimedia keyboard, just a basic one with some annoyances thrown in.

Naturally, if you find yourself not liking the shortcut buttons, you can have them disabled. Or, if you like, you can refrain from installation of the Logitech drivers altogether - no drivers, no enhancements. Personally, I like them - once you get used to the settings and not press the close window button (which sits under my left wrist the way I type), you should be fine.

6. Delete Key - can't say much about the rearranged keys - not too many keyboards are following the standard layout any more, and any keyboard will take a day or two to get used to - but I really like the delete key on this one. Allows me to delete things - particularly emails - with a vengeance! This, of course, causes me to have to re-learn to touch type the ins-del-home-pgup-pgdn keys - but what's a little sacrifice in learning time when you can delete with a vengeance!

7. Shortcut keys - though I was not a big fan of these, it's nice (and lazy) to be able to bring up the calculator, Microsoft Word/Excel/Powerpoint, and the like without having to move the hand to the mouse. Of course, Windows allows you to define shortcut keys for any application - but who remembers which arcane control-shift-key combination they defined to bring up every app? All I remember is probably Windows-E for explorer and control-shift-escape for the task manager.

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The Bad
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1. Rearrangements - as is the common gripe in all the reviews, the rearranged keys present a learning curve before the average user. For me - I decided this was not much of a deal. Plus, this wireless combo is now under $30, which means I can afford to buy two of them, and install both at home and at work, then have no issues whatsoever when I switch from one to the other.

2. No LED lights - another common gripe, the lack of LED status lights. My Dell wireless does not have this as well, so I did not really miss this. In fact, having the LED lights would probably bring down the battery life on this yet-another-battery-powered device. The wireless receiver does have the lights - but then this will probably end up behind a lot of clutter on the desk in no time (or even under it), so I could not care less. As mentioned earlier - I really like the display on the screen that notifies me of the status whenever a toggle switch is pressed.

3. Close button a little too close - this is one of the long shortcut keys that sits under the edge of my left hand, and was getting me a little jittery - what if it closed, say, my browser when I was almost done with my review, but had not posted it?

You have two choices here - let the muscle memory of your hands build up in a few days, or disable the buttons using the supplied software.



Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 30