It's either a stroke of genius or a natural evolution that a myriad of 2.4GHz RF wireless solutions have migrated to the Bluetooth standard, but it has taken years.
It's either a stroke of genius or a natural evolution that a myriad of 2.4GHz RF wireless solutions have migrated to the Bluetooth standard, but it has taken years. We first saw Bluetooth being used for mouse connectivity with a highly expensive presentation mouse from Logitech, but it is the Wireless Optical Desktop for Bluetooth from Microsoft that makes Bluetooth available for standard wireless keyboards and mice.
Microsoft's package marries a sleek Bluetooth dongle (with a very cute blue LED effect) with a keyboard and mouse. The dongle comes with a cradle for easy accessibility and a normal USB plug adaptor that lets you take Bluetooth on the road. They all come in a dark blue colour, with a particularly nice touch being the slightly translucent blue keys on the keyboard (just begging for some creative EL Cable modding).
One of the most impressive things about the package is the ease at which the software installs. After wrestling with arcane software that has accompanied Bluetooth dongles in the past, Microsoft's plug and play setup is a dream. One thing to note though, the kit requires Windows XP with the packaged Service pack 1 and Bluetooth stack installed.
Performance wise, there is little difference to previous wireless offerings from Microsoft, apart from increased range. The mouse is still way too jerky for most games, with often-noticeable pauses between updates.
To get the full benefit from this kit it pays to have other Bluetooth enabled devices.
Compared to the price of a normal wireless keyboard and mouse of this caliber, it is expensive, but on the other hand the additional Bluetooth dongle makes the price more bearable. With little performance benefit over normal 2.4GHz RF setups, this one is only worth the plunge if you need the functionality of Bluetooth.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012