MS Wireless Laser Keyboard

If you're going to go wireless with peripherals, why not do it all the way, and ditch the wire on your keyboard? Microsoft would certainly like you to do so: they've got a whole line of paired wireless keyboard and mouse products, including their new flagship product, the Wireless Laser Desktop 7000, designed to reduce wire clutter and - particularly in the case of the Wireless Laser Desktop 7000 - increase productivity through all kinds of built in functions. How well does the ensemble work, and are the features worth the money? Today, we'll be finding out.

Button-wise, both keyboard and mouse come fully loaded for daily computer use. The Wireless 7000 Mouse has five buttons (right, left, wheel with vertical scrolling and horizontal tilting, and two buttons on the left side), each programmable through the mouse control panel applet. The keyboard includes a full thirty-three function keys running up the left side and in two rows across the top of the unit, each programmable from their default uses to any command that suits your fancy. Among the thirty-three are three floating keys, which sit in the top row in a touch-sensitive section of the plastic rim, and are meant to activate a user-preferred program, document or webpage - anything you can activate using a path. In addition, about half of the remaining function keys are enhanced F keys, which can switch between programmed functions and traditional F key features using the F key lock.

The mouse's rechargeable battery charges through a connection on the included stand.

The top row of buttons, including the three floating buttons.

The keyboard and the mouse use the same 2.4 GHz wireless receiver, built in to a USB chip the size of a flash drive to connect to the host computer. This receiver allows the keyboard and mouse to operate from up to thirty feet away, and can hop between frequencies to prevent problems with interference. The mouse, which has a 1,000 dpi high-definition laser sensor, comes with a rechargeable battery that refreshes through the included charger, a dock-type piece of hardware that hooks into the mouse through a connection point on the bottom. Microsoft claims that the battery in the mouse will last three weeks without any additional charging. The keyboard, however, relies on an (included) standard AA battery for power, and does not include any charging capabilities. Unfortunately, this means that if your keyboard's battery goes dead, you'll need to have access to spare batteries or a spare keyboard to prevent any work stoppages. Microsoft does not provide a rating on the keyboard's battery life.