Kensington 64382 PilotBoard Wireless USB Desktop for Mac (Mac)

by Kensington

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 20.5 x 9.5 x 3 inches ; 3.6 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0009JR5KA
• Item model number: 64382
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: April 19, 2005

Product Description

QuickRF high-speed wireless connection / DiamondEye technology for silky-smooth mouse tracking / Multimedia, internet, & user-switching keys Detachable keyboard wrist rest provides supportive, all-day comfort Scroll wheels on keyboard and mouse quickly navigate through long documents Contemporary good looks are a stylish complement to a Mac or Mac mini

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Dropping keystrokes, February 1, 2006

By 

W. W. Gibbs (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kensington 64382 PilotBoard Wireless USB Desktop for Mac (Mac) (Personal Computers)

I bought this in the hope of getting all the multimedia and browser buttons of a Microsoft keyboard but the correct key labels and layout for my Mac. Having switched from a MS keyboard, however, I'm now regretting it. The Kensington pilot board seems to have significant difficulties transmitting wirelessly, as it regularly drops keystrokes and often shows a perceptible lag between key hit and computer response (compared to a wired keyboard). I'm returning mine.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good keyboard, bad mouse..., September 15, 2005

By 

Gilad Niv (Los Angeles, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kensington 64382 PilotBoard Wireless USB Desktop for Mac (Mac) (Personal Computers)

We are using this product with a new iMac G5. The keyboard works well and has nice functionality in the form of all the custom buttons. Keep in mind the board along with the hand-rest take quite a significant chunk of space on the desktop - significantly more than the minimal Apple keyboard. The mouse looks and feels great and is designed very ergonomically. It's one major fault is that its wireless trait make the cursor (little arrow) very jittery and I couldn't quite find a good compromise. It is adjustable and there are different settings, but compared with a standard wired-mouse, it is very difficult to get the cursor point exactly where you want it, particularly in slow speeds. This one thing damages the whole experience with the product and should be considered when purchasing it.

Also, after about 3 weeks (of rather minimal use), the batteries of the keyboard already need to be replaced!

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Mac users hosed again! (edit: sucks for Windows too!), June 14, 2006

By 

kattphud (Oklahoma City, OK United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kensington 64382 PilotBoard Wireless USB Desktop for Mac (Mac) (Personal Computers)

I bought this keyboard for my Mac Mini recently, and I am not happy. The keyboard lags just enough to drive me insane! For example, while capitalizing the first letter of a sentence, if my finger lingers on the Shift key for just a bit too long, the next 5 characters I type take about a half a second to appear, and are all capitalized. Likewise, the mouse takes anywhere from 2 to 5 seconds to respond after waking from the screensaver.

The Mac software for this supposedly Mac-compatible keyboard is worse. Some of the extra buttons do nothing at all in the Mac OS, and others don't do what one would expect. The browser buttons only support Safari, and do nothing in third-party browsers such as Firefox and Seamonkey (support "may be added in future versions" according to the manufacturer's website, but the current version is over a year old). The multimedia keys control iTunes only, not Quicktime or any other multimedia application. If iTunes isn't running when I press one of the multimedia keys, it will start iTunes then perform that function; a pointless and annoying feature. The interface to remap the buttons includes all of 3 buttons, one of which is incorrectly labeled. I have yet to determine battery life, as the software randomly pops up "low battery" messages no matter how recently I replaced them. Overall, a very shoddy and useless driver program.

I'm irritated that I wasted my money on this thing. Even with the recent price drop, it's not worth the money.

***EDIT***
After this set failed me for my Mac, I gave it to my wife for her Windows machine. It worked OK untill I downloaded and installed the driver software so I could remap the extra buttons beyond the defaults. Now the multimedia and Internet buttons on the keyboard no longer work, and the mouse is permanently borked. It responds to clicks, but it will not respond to movements. I've even uninstalled the software and the drivers in hopes of returning to its former working state, but it still refuses to function.

Don't waste your money on this! There's a reason they just reduced the price by $30. Even at the reduced price it's still not worth the money.