Logitech MX 3200 wireless combo

Logitech’s latest keyboard and mouse bundle -- coming soon to an executive desk near you.

How do you improve a keyboard? According to some, keyboards reached their peak decades ago, when they were built like tanks. But manufacturers are still surprising us by adding extras you may or may not need.

The MX 3200 is wireless, and transmits to a USB dongle instead of using Bluetooth. The downside is that this will eat a USB port, and the upside is that the wireless connection is handled by the Logitech hardware, which should mean fewer connection problems.

There is a small LCD display in the front of the ‘board. It doesn’t display anywhere near as much information as, say, the wired Logitech G15 (it would chew through the batteries receiving data if it did that). Nonetheless, the display has some features that you may find useful, unless you wear a watch.

There’s a clock, alarm and count-down timer built into the board. That’s not all though, there’s also a feature that’s exactly half way between thoroughly awesome and thoroughly pointless: a hardware character counter. Push a key and it increases by one. How this feature works its way into the second hand market as an odometer is yet to be seen, because it resets when you change the batteries.

There’s a touch sensitive strip on the far left that will zoom in and out of documents and web pages, and it not only makes you feel like Mr Worf when you use it, but it makes old-school Commander Keen-esque sound effects when you do. While we’re on the ergonomics front, the hand rest is not removable (the four AA batteries are stored underneath it) but is tactile and smooth.

Hotkeys line the top of the keyboard for volume control, player shortcuts and media player transport. There are VoIP controls below the number pad (start application, make and end call) and hotkeys for local and remote searches, an Alt+F4 shortcut for the lazy and a button that brings up a list of active applications on the left.

Our only major gripe is that the options key (the one on the right, between alt and control, without the windows logo) has been replaced with a FN key, turning your F1-12 keys into yet more application launching shortcuts. The options key can still be accessed by pressing FN and print screen, but it gets tedious.

The rest of the buttons -- the ones you’ll be doing the typing on -- are comfortable but a little squishy, and keeps typing noise to a minimum. The same people who described them as rubbery really liked them.

The second part to this package is the wireless laser mouse, which naturally connects to the same USB dongle as the keyboard. It’s a very curvy affair, but not the slickest we’ve seen from Logitech. Just so you know, you can’t buy this mouse separately.

It doesn’t have selectable DPI settings, but there are seven buttons on the mouse in addition to the left, right and scroll buttons. All of which are assignable through software. It’s solidly built, responsive and comfortable. You can rest your entire hand on it and it’s nicely weighted, but it doesn’t have the freewheeling scroll wheel mode of the highest-end MX or VX Revolution.

The quoted battery time for the mouse is 6 months, versus 15 for the keyboard. On the subject of battery life, we found after experimenting that even though it holds two AA batteries, it will run on just the one. So when you decide that you need the batteries out of it for something urgent, you’ll be twice as likely to have a spare in the depths of a drawer somewhere.

It’s not an ultra-high end mouse, so it doesn’t have any of the ultra-high end features of the G7, but for the money it comes damned close by retaining the Logitech feel, shape and most of the functionality. Because they’re built as a set they look beautiful and sleek on a desk or as part of a media centre setup. And even though neither of these are Logitech’s flagship products, they still have Logitech build quality shining through.