Customer Reviews

IOGEAR Multimedia Keyboard with Laser Trackball and Scroll Wheel, 2.4GHz Wireless GKM561R (Black)

5 star:		(219)
4 star:		(155)
3 star:		(50)
2 star:		(33)
1 star:		(29)

 

 

I have an old laptop permanently hooked up to my TV. Its my DVD player, Netflix/Hulu player and multi-format Media player. It's worked out great so far, except the part where I need to keep scooting up to the laptop to choose/play the next video, reluctantly giving up the comfort spot on my couch. I've tried hooking up my other wireless k/b and mouse to it, but that didn't work too well; miserable range, k/b too big to leave lying on the coffee table, no convenient surface to use the mouse, etc. but mainly the miserable range was what killed it.

I've been eying the dinovo mini for a while now, but could never get myself to spill a 3-digit figure for a k/b. But all the other HTPC keyboards had mixed reviews, so I had resigned myself to waiting till the dinovo got old and cheap. That's till I spotted the iogear last week. Pretty decent reviews on Newegg and Amazon, good looking design, encouraging feedback on the range and a trackball and scroll wheel to boot. I was sold.

I've been totally enjoying this keyboard the last one week. Excellent range, great size, the trackball works great, and the scroll wheel is a blessing. This is almost exactly what I was looking for, and at a great price-point. Well, definitely more expensive than I would spend on a typical wireless keyboard, but given the selection of alternatives out there, this is probably the best feature-price ratio for a htpc keyboard one can get. Both XP pro and home had no issues recognizing it without needing anything to be installed.

If I were to change some things on this keyboard, they would be:
1. Make it a little lighter; it currently weighs around 2 pounds or so. My full-size wireless keyboard is nearly twice its size but feels way lighter.
2. The track ball has some play to it, i.e. isn't snug in its socket. It doesn't really affect functionality though, just a little annoying at times.
3. The track ball is entirely light-weight smooth plastic. Rolls very smoothly and no problems so far, but I imagine that adding some rubberized coating (such as that on the scroll wheel) and weight would have been great for friction, good tactile feel and more precise pointer movement. The higher DPI settings are currently unusable because there isn't sufficient friction between fingers and trackball to be able to make precise tiny movements, and it rolls way too easily.
4. The design with a trackball in the upper right corner and the mouse buttons in the upper left corner is excellent when you're using both hands, but makes it very difficult for single-handed operation. The mouse buttons (at least the left click) could have been provided on both sides to ease this.
5. Has a lot of keyboard functions that would probably work only on the media center versions of windows. They're useless for me; I might have swapped the extra keys for clipboard operations, zoom, navigation, etc. that could be used in any version of windows.
6. Some keys are disproportionately sized - like the return key and the arrow keys - almost like the key layout was designed in a hurry. Don't care much for the fonts either. But overall the keyboard has a real neat, sleek look with an obsession for straight lines and angles. Very good-looking.
7. Not very pick-up-able. You cannot pick it up from a flat surface (table) with just one hand in a reasonably quick manner without the risk of knocking your shiny new keyboard right off the table. The bar running under the top edge of the keyboard would be a prime location for adding a gap where your fingers can slip underneath to grab it. Not cool to always need to reach for it with both hands.

These are all just minor nitpicks though - I really, really like this keyboard. If you have a HTPC, you should get it; you won't regret it. I might still get the dinovo mini when its price drops to this range (half the size and has a touchpad; touchpads are much more versatile pointer controllers for me), but until then, this iogear is the perfect fit for my needs.

It's really difficult to find a good combination wireless keyboard and mouse. I've tried Logitech's more expensive expensive diNovo Edge, and the trackpad is nearly unusable.

Overall the IOGear is better and much cheaper - in terms of both price and construction - but it's by no means perfect. The trackball material is horrible, and it sometimes doesn't register quick movement. Once you slow down to a speed it likes, it gets the job done. The keyboard is fairly good, but has some odd button placements that take a bit of getting used to.

I'd recommend this for an HTPC that will get occasional use as a PC. I would not recommend it if you'll be using the keyboard for extended periods of time, however.

This keyboard is exactly what I needed. I got tired of trying to type more than two words on my Adesso WKB-3000UB. The Adesso worked well enough, but typing on it for more than 2 minutes would give my finger joints a pounding.

The IOGear keyboard, in contrast, is much easier on the fingers. I can type for much longer periods of time without cramping up. It functions on the same RF frequency as the Adesso so range is pretty much the same. The IOGear keyboard is definitely much better looking than the Adesso, although the glossy top and bottom panels are fingerprint magnets so it's good they included a cleaning cloth for it.

The scroll wheel, clickers, and trackball perform really well and are placed in intuitive places.

And last but not least, for all you Linux users; this works flawlessly on Ubuntu intrepid and jaunty.

I bought this keyboard for my HTPC after seeing good reviews on other sites.

Setup was a snap--plugged in the RF receiver and the keyboard worked right away with no other steps required.

I like the compactness of this device--it has full sized keys without the number pad on the right side. The on/off switch helps with battery life.

My HTPC is in the basement and the TV is on the 1st floor so the RF signal has to go through a wood floor and no problems to date. I am inside the 30' radius that's recommended.

I'm subtracting 0.5 stars for the trackball. It works good enough but feels cheap.

I use this only a few times a week to look for TV on the internet and it's great for that. For full-time use I'd probably look for a keyboard with a higher quality trackball.

I'm completely satisfied with this device but only because it gets limited usage. Can't beat the performance for the price paid.

I have been trying out various wireless keyboards, looking for something to work with a computer hooked to a HDTV (from the comfort of my couch). I type and write a lot, so I have given them all a significant workout.

IOGEAR

Pros:

. A small-sized keyboard.
. Lightweight.

Cons:

The biggest con, is the lack of a supplementary "right"-click key, near the trackball. It is just natural to want to click after scrolling to a on-screen button, or link, etc --- and the current placement of the Clickers and the trackball forces two handed operation for every single click. The Adesso/MSI keyboards have this duplicate right-click-key in just the right place (but, I am not recommending those keyboards either, for other reasons). This also makes shift+click+scroll (like when selecting text) nearly impossible when holding the keyboard.

The angle of the keyboard's sides -- large at the bottom and small at the top -- is just wrong/uncomfortable. If you already have this keyboard, just try holding it upside down to see how much more comfortable it would be if configured that way.

While I am on the sides -- they are TOO thin -- making them not ergonomic to hold for extended periods.

The scroll wheel would be better placed above the left/right-buttons, rather than off to the inside as it is now. Again, ergonomically speaking -- watch how your hand fits on the keyboard. The index finger sits at the top, or on the side, (where the scroll should be) and not off to the inside, where you have to stretch your thumb to reach it now.

The Left/Right click keys occasionally fail to work.
(hint: If this happens to you, hit Esc or Tab, and the Left/Right keys will magically be re-enabled.)

The sticky gray holding strip, on the sides of the keyboard (the better to hold it with) fell off fairly early on.

The lack of dedicated PgUp/PgDn/End/Home keys is annoying, as is the placement of the Function Key (Fn) controlled versions of those keys on this keyboard. Again, IOGEAR is Forcing the use of two hands.

A minor point is that all of the media buttons (play, stop, turn on/off sound, increase/decrease volume, etc, are all right next to each other, with exactly the same sized keys and hard to discern graphics under the sound buttons. This makes these keys ... difficult, at best to use in less than full light. I guess a better fitting description would be 'annoying' to use.

Summary:

I would not buy this keyboard again.

I love it when a product works as advertised without any fuss. This IOGear wireless keyboard is just that. On a WinXP MCE 2005 machine w/SP3, it was pure pluge 'n play without any driver installation whatsoever. I was literally setup in under a minute from opening the box to the keyboard working. And the for the price (~$41 off Amazon), it's unbeatable. I've had the keyboard 4 hours as of this writing; I'll update this review as needed.

UPDATE: After a month of use, I continue to feel this product deserves 5 stars. The trackball does not produce smooth motion when you flick it too quickly, but that's no problem. I never turn off the keyboard (it goes into stand-by after a bit of non-use), and the batteries have held up. And I've not had to re-sync the keyboard with the receiver at the computer. Highly recommended.

I am using this keyboard as the primary I/O for my HTPC. Plug and Play. Good Range. Ergonomically fit for two hands. Works well. Use the ON/OFF switch on the bottom when not using for extended time.

Battery life is a tad shorter than I would hope for, though it is acceptable for this price range. Usually takes a click or two to re-establish communication with receiver after long periods of inactivity. Very happy with this purchase.

I Would never consider buying the DiNovo at its current price, besides, the size of the keys remind me of a BlackBerry keyboard- who wants that? If you are deciding between Adesso and the I/O gear - Adesso is the lesso quality of the two.

UPDATE: I have had this keyboard for several months now and I am very happy with it. My initial criticism of the battery life has been proven wrong, I have not had to replace the batteries yet (besides the cheap ones that were included in the box that caused me to think battery life would be short). It is a great HTPC keyboard, we actually quit using the IR remote control and prefer to use the keyboard for its media buttons and trackball which are more responsive than the Antec media center remote.

So final verdict: Buy it without worry. Has great range, ergonomics, battery life, plug and play, WMC integration. It is light weight and very durable - surviving several hard drops to our floor.

I bought this keyboard and like many reviews here the mouse buttons cause the cursor to jump several inches in random directions when pressed. This often caused entire folders to be moved into other folders without knowing where they had been moved. It made operating my home theater PC a nightmare. I can deal with an occasional defective product but I don't like companies like IOGear who lie and pretend the issue isn't common. They actually told me via email that "this is not a known issue". So either all the customers who had the same issue on Amazon are lying or IOGear is trying to cover up the issue. My vote is on the latter. I was told I would have to send the keyboard back for warranty. Why should I be required to pay for shipping of a defective product the company knows is very common and why should I be without a working computer for however many weeks it takes them to return the product? Perhaps had they been honest and admitted the issue was known that I would be more understanding, but instead they flat-out lied. Too bad because I might have otherwise rated this product higher, but a bad company should not be given help to sell any product they do not stand behind.

The first one of these I bought from Amazon was defective. The trackball moved slowly upward would not move the cursor, while moving the trackball downward at the same speed would move the cursor rapidly downward. Amazon paid the shipping to return it and credited the purchase price back to my credit card. I wanted a replacement but Amazon said there wasn't one available. A few days later I checked and they were available again, so I ordered another one. This one works perfectly. About a week later Amazon notified me that the defective one had been received and they were crediting the purchase price back to my credit card.

So far, I couldn't be happier with the IOGear wireless keyboard with laser trackball. For those who don't know, there is a difference between an "optical" trackball (or mouse) and a "laser" trackball (or mouse.) An optical trackball (or mouse) works by turning with the ball two disks with holes in them. One disk moves the cursor vertically and the other one moves it horizontally. These disks are called interrupters because as they turn, the holes in them interrupt, or chop, a light beam. The interruptions are counted, and the computer uses the count to move the cursor on the screen. The problem with this Rube Goldberg scheme is that the trackball turns the interrupter disks by rubbing a rubber wheel mounted on a shaft. Sooner or later the rubber wheel gets dirty, which causes the interrupter wheel, and the cursor, to move erratically. So an optical trackball has to be taken apart and cleaned from time to time, usually when you can't afford the time.

The laser trackball is exactly the same idea as a laser mouse, only it senses the movement of the surface of a ball instead of the flat surface of a desk. Movement of the ball is sensed by some kind of magic that involves shining a laser on the surface of the ball and sensing the reflected laser light with an integrated circuit. I have only the foggiest idea how it works. I do know that in my experience a laser trackball is more sensitive to movement of the ball, and more precise, than is an optical trackball. More importantly to me, it is much more resistant to dirt fouling up the works. In fact, if the surface of the ball gets dirty or roughed up, so much the better for sensing its movement. Eventually enough lint will collect on the integrated circuit that the laser trackball will start screwing up. It worries me that there doesn't seem to be any provision in the IOGear laser trackball for taking the ball out of its socket to clean out dirt and lint.

As for the rest of the keyboard, I'm not used to using a scroll wheel, so I won't comment on that except to say that it works as I suppose it ought to. I like the large "enter" key. I think this is a good thing on any keyboard, but especially a keyboard that you'll be holding in your hands while you operate the laser trackball and poke various keys with your thumb. One pet peeve I have about every keyboard I've used so far is that the letters wear off the keys pretty quickly. I haven't used the IOGear much, so I don't know how rugged the letters on its keys are.

The range seems adequate. I sit about 15 feet away from the 32 inch LCD screen which is connected to my computer. So far, everything I do with the keyboard and mouse is picked up by the computer. I can't read the screen any farther away, so I wouldn't have any use for the 33 feet of range IOGear claims on the box. Maybe someday I will. Setting up (pairing?) the USB receiver with the keyboard was a simple matter of poking the reset buttons on each until the trackball started working. Later I found out that the trackball won't work after a reboot until one of the keyboard keys is hit, but that's not a problem for me. The keyboard works fine to mess around in the BIOS settings, and it and the trackball also work fine in Linux.

This is the fourth wireless keyboard with built-in pointing device I've owned. The other three have had issues with their pointing devices that kept me looking for something better. Two of them had a rubber bug you rock up or down or side to side to move the cursor. This didn't work very predictably, precisely or smoothly. The third had an optical trackball which was very erratic. So far, the IOGear's laser trackball has them all beat. I highly recommend it. It works so well that I may stop looking for something better.

I guess I just got unlucky, since the rest of the reviews on here are pretty positive, but the unit I received had major mouse cursor issues. A click of the left mouse button would cause the cursor to jump a few hundred pixels in a random direction. This happened about half the time, and rendered the item unusable. Still searching for the perfect HTPC keyboard...