One of my Christmas vacation goals was to set up an old
desktop computer as a media center device (running Boxee). More on
that when I’m done with the effort. To control the machine I was
looking for an affordable wireless keyboard and mouse solution. I
found a cheap Inland combo at MicroCenter. It uses RF so it should
be able to work with the barely hidden computer. So I thought. And
for $20 it’s a deal. Well, you get what you pay for. On looks alone
the keyboard and mouse are handsome and the USB transmitter is of
the cool tiny kind, and barely visible. Touching the devices gives
the right impression. Cheap and flimsy. To get to the tiny
transmitter you need to remove the battery cover from the mouse and
pull it out of a dedicated compartment. Quite nifty except for the
fact that the mouse cover is flimsy and does not pull off gently.
Eventually everything was in place. What makes this a bad accessory
is that it fails to do either of its jobs. The keyboard barely
manages to send key strokes to the computer. Even a 4 year old
typing with a single finger was too fast. And that’s when the key
strokes even registered. Normally something was off with the
connectivity. Changing batteries did nothing to improve matters.
The mouse did not fare any better. It did not ‘wake’ from wait
state until it was moved roughly and even then lost reception. Not
very helpful. Clearly this goes back to the store. Since it did not
harm the machine it is not the worst. But useless overall.
