Kensington Wireless Presentation Remote

Author's product rating:   

Reliability	Excellent
Ease of Use	Very Easy
Quality	Good
Durability	Good
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	Simple to use, very effective, makes you look like a professional
Disadvantages:	I haven't found any

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

If you ever have to give a Powerpoint presentation using a basic laptop and projector then you need one of these little devices to make the whole thing a breeze.

What is it? - It is a small device which will fit neatly in your hand and enable you to move from slide to slide (and back again) without going near to the laptop. You can stand wherever is best to communicate with the audience just so long as you are in range of the receiver and that is something like 30 feet so you will have plenty of scope!

How does it work? - All you do is to take the little device out of the base of the unit ( the thing that looks like a little black 'tail' in the photo above) and plug it into the USB port of your laptop, put the main unit in your hand, load your Powerpoint presentation and set your presentation to slide show. The little handheld device will then be able to operate you slide show remotely by communicating with the receiver in your USB port. The handheld device is easy to use - the right hand button will move you on to the next slide, the left hand button will move you back a slide - simplicity itself. In addition the bottom button will give you a blank screen on the first press and the second press will bring your presentation back - this is a really useful feature in my view because your audience can assemble to a blank screen and then you can press to bring up your first slide - when you have finished you can blank the screen again giving a much more professional appearance. There is a button at the top which works an infra red pointer to enable you to point from a distance at a place on the presentation.

Is it easy to use? - exceptionally - it is plug and play and that is literally all you need to do - no software to load, no real skills to learn it is intuitive and the worst mistake you might make is to press the infra red when you want the blank screen button!

One of my pet hates is to watch Powerpoint presentations where the speaker is continually returning to their PC to move on a screen, usually the laptop is somewhere low down so they are stooping - it generally spoils the flow and is distracting. Even worse is when they get a friend to crawl on their hands and knees behind the laptop to operate the PC whilst the speaker speaks! - unprofessional I think even if it highly amusing to some in the audience and it seriously detracts from what is being said.

The Kensington Wireless Presentation Remote retails in the region of £30 and if you are doing presentations on a regular basis it is a great investment. If you are a company doing presentations to promote your business I don't think you can afford to be without one - you will look far more businesslike and in control.