2.4GHZ Wrls Multimedia Media Center Keyb with optical Trackball

by Adesso Inc

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 17.8 x 7 x 2 inches ; 2.3 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B001G8LNLU
• Item model number: WKB-3200UB
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 14, 2004

Product Description

Adesso Wireless Media Center Keyboard WKB-3200UB Keyboards & Keypads

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Multimedia Keyboard!!, November 11, 2008

By 

Patrick Hughes (Philidelphia, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: 2.4GHZ Wrls Multimedia Media Center Keyb with optical Trackball (Personal Computers)

Pros:
This product is amazing. I was looking for a multimedia keyboard to replace my Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse. This has everything that is needed in a multimedia keyboard. It is full size so you have the much needed number pad. And the media center shortcut buttons are well placed. It has great reception and I haven't had any problems with it freezing up like I did with my Microsoft model. The track ball moves smoothly and it doesn't take long to get used to. This thing is perfect for surfing the net from the couch or Lazy-Boy.

Cons:
The one con is that the learn button on the bottom of the keyboard sticks out enough that you can accidentally press it while using the keyboard. Then you have to go to the comp and reset it. I solved this problem by taking the keyboard apart and just cutting the button down with a pair of snips.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Works with Mac and Linux too., August 4, 2009

By 

Elaine C. Sharpe - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: 2.4GHZ Wrls Multimedia Media Center Keyb with optical Trackball (Personal Computers)

Ordering this keyboard was a gamble that paid off, as I use OS X & Linux on my Mac Mini. I just received it this afternoon and I am so happy to have it for my living room setup. It'll take a little getting used to, as some of the function keys are a bit smaller than normal, but the design really does work perfectly in a small enough package to be practical without being cramped. The qwerty keys are standard sized, which makes typing easy.
As I mentioned earlier, I bought this to use with a Mac Mini which dual boots OS X and Debian Linux, and it works fine with both systems. The volume, mute, play, pause, etc multimedia keys work with iTunes in OS X right out of the box! In Linux, I used a program called keytouch, and selected "Microsoft wireless keyboard", which immediately allowed me to use volume and mute keys. The rest can be defined with keytouch-editor, or in xmodmap. I haven't bothered with trying to set up the extra file manager keys at the top of the keyboard, since I'm mainly a command line geek anyway, but I'm sure it can be done. I'd have given it a full five stars, except that (as others have mentioned) it does have a bit of a cheap feel to it, definitely not the luxurious tactile experience of a macally icekeys. But the feel is workable, and the mobility and packaging factors are truly awesome.

UPDATE: May 10, 2010

After living with this keyboard a while, one rather large flaw has surfaced: the optical trackball. It gathers dirt and dust as all optical pointers do, and I found that disassembling the keyboard to clean the trackball is a serious pain in the you-know-what. After removing all the screws and lifting off the top cover, all sorts of tiny pieces were immediately displaced -- YIKES! Although I did manage to clean and reassemble it, it took a LONG time to figure it out and get every tiny piece back in its place. This is a serious design flaw; they should have made the case have a small opening for just the trackball mechanism as any optical pointing device will need to be taken apart and cleaned periodically.

Also, over time the "clunkiness"of the keyboard becomes very tedious. It's a shame they didn't use higher quality components for the keyboard itself. But I suppose the primary market for this device would be HTPC users who don't type any more than necessary.

All things considered, this keyboard should probably sell for half the price it does. The lack of adequate competition in wireless keyboards with integrated pointing devices is all that allows Adesso to get away with selling such a cheaply-made device at what is essentially a midrange price point.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Keyboard, November 24, 2008

By 

Aldo Caliz (Bogota, Colombia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: 2.4GHZ Wrls Multimedia Media Center Keyb with optical Trackball (Personal Computers)

This product is my dream keyboard. The wireless system works perfectly, each time to power up your computer you just press the mouse button and the keyboard begins working instantly. The dedicated multimedia keys are very well distributed, the trackball is perfect and even more efficient than a mouse because you don't need space to move it and the movements are really very precise, thats why the trackball is the preferred device for advanced cad and technical users.
The keyboard has worked perfectly, no problem with key assignment or typing speed. I really can recommend this product.