Logitech Cordless Desktop S 510 - keyboard , mouse

...turned out to be the Logitech Cordless Desktop 510. The Logitech Cordless Desktop S510 consists of three items, the keyboard, mouse and wireless transmitter plus of course the driver CD. OK, four items.

The Logitech Cordless S510 keyboard's main selling point is its slim profile - around 1cm and this is why I bought it - it looks really, really sexy. Perhaps I should get my head checked out if I've started to find computer keyboards ...
...This was painless too and Logitech are known to upgrade their drivers regularly so keep an eye out for new versions although I'd also recommend holding back a few days if anything new does appear as some updates have proved a tad buggy. Once it's clear the new versions work OK, you can go ahead and install. Anyway, I digress...

Initial impressions were OK. The mouse is a bit dull, it works well enough but feels rather plasticky and ... more

My somewhat ancient Microsoft Internet keyboard and mouse are starting to get a bit long in the tooth. The mouse's ball has gone a bit strange and the keyboard is looking rather grubby and being wired rather than wireless, sometimes gets caught up as I move it about. It was upgrade time.

The replacement of choice turned out to be the Logitech Cordless Desktop 510. The Logitech Cordless Desktop S510 consists of three items, the keyboard, mouse and wireless transmitter plus of course the driver CD. OK, four items.

The Logitech Cordless S510 keyboard's main selling point is its slim profile - around 1cm and this is why I bought it - it looks really, really sexy. Perhaps I should get my head checked out if I've started to find computer keyboards sexy but you know what I mean...

Anyway, despite this super-thin profile, it still manages to provide decent feeling keys with good travel and a comfortable wrist rest at the front. It's black and silver with orange highlights and on the whole looks rather fine.

As well as being thin, it also sports a number of additional keys for zooming in images, playing with the volume levels (and muting), shuffling your songs and so on. There is also a key that makes all the function keys along the top double up to become programmable keys that can start up any programs you want. My old Microsoft one had a dedicated button for launching the calculator which I use a lot so that was the first one I set up.

The mouse is a bit more basic with a wheel that can do left/right scrolling as well as up and down and that's about it.

Installation is straight forward. Simply stick in all the supplied batteries, plug the transmitter in to your PC's mouse and keyboard sockets (USB or PS/2) and power up.

The keyboard and mouse will now work in their basic modes but to get the funky stuff such as programable keys and other twiddly bits, you need to install the driver CD. This was painless too and Logitech are known to upgrade their drivers regularly so keep an eye out for new versions although I'd also recommend holding back a few days if anything new does appear as some updates have proved a tad buggy. Once it's clear the new versions work OK, you can go ahead and install. Anyway, I digress...

Initial impressions were OK. The mouse is a bit dull, it works well enough but feels rather plasticky and wasn't the best fit in the palm of my hand. I haven't got the biggest hands in the world but it still felt too small compared to my old mouse. I do know a couple of other people who use the same mouse and they like it though so it may just be a case of what you're used to.

The keyboard was rather better although it has taken a few days to get used to the slightly smaller than average keys. The delete key is a real oddity and twice as high as usual making you think it's the wrong one everytime you go to hit it. Looking at it, I think they've ket to the standard width for a keyboard but because of the extra keys either end, they've had to change the main keyboard aroud slightly to make it all fit.

The wireless side can be set to use an encrypted channel - very important if there is a risk of someone snooping on your signal and capturing your passwords etc. Both keyboard and mouse have battery warning LEDs which is a boon and saves you suddenly finding your keyboard dead 5 mins after your local battery vendor has closed for the day.

Another oddity which I haven't got to the bottom of is that I use the keyboard with two PCs via a switch box. They're both similar-ish Windows XP machines yet the facilities that appeared when the drivers were installed are slightly different from each other. One offers some gaming enhancements, the other doesn't. Go figure!

Having used the Logitech Cordless Desktop 510 for a few weeks, I'm still not sure if it was a good move or not. It looks really nice and the extra keyboard functions are useful. On the other hand, the mouse is nothing to get excited about and I'm still struggling with the odd sized delete key on the keyboard. However, I'd have been happy with the keyboard alone given the price so I may end up getting a different mouse in time. Others may be fine with it, I just think it's too small.  

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