Rating: 
Summary: Great peripherals, and here's some hints...(3/13/04 update)
Review: 1. By itself, the BT transmitter will support dial-up networking for your BT phone (i.e., if you want to use your phone as a modem, this will do it). It can set up what's called a "dial-up networking profile" on your system, which is a bluetooth standard.2. It does not support file synchronization with your phones. To do that, you need what's called a "serial profile" in the world of Bluetooth configurations. The Microsoft transmitter and software do not have this capability (at least right now). 3. The keyboard and mouse DO--I repeat, it DO--work with other bluetooth transmitters! The trick is finding one that supports what's called a "human interface device profile" (HID) configuration. This one is relatively new. In my case, I had to download a driver from Dell's site to get set up, and uninstall the microsoft software completely. The bottom line is, if you want this keyboard and mouse to work with your own transmitter, make 110% sure your transmitter can presently (or be upgraded to provide) support for the HID configuration standard. Chances are it also supports serial, object push profiles, etc. and then you can get trucking with file synchronization. 4. Microsoft is not the enemy, at least this time. The HID profile is not Microsoft, it's a bluetooth standard. What Microsoft is relatively guilty of is some pretty optimistic wording on this product's packaging about device interoperability. 5. The keyboard and mouse are stellar. Awesome. Beautfully designed, and the mouse in particular is the best one I've ever used. Take some of my hard-earned advice and with a little patience, you can get this thing up and running. Just get very squared away on your present system capabilities, as well as what you want to do once you "go bluetooth," before you buy. That will make a lot of difference in your own review of this product! March 13th, 2004 Update:
Still surprised to see the continued posted misconceptions about Bluetooth and this particular device (Why isn't Amazon editing this stuff? It's really misleading). Again, people are flat-out mistaken if they think this device either "locks them in to Microsoft" or effectively limits adding any other Bluetooth device(s). As I and others have pointed out, as long as your computer has a specific capability to support the HID bluetooth standard (or if you're content with the Microsoft receiever included), you are going to enjoy a really neat keyboard. I have dropped my review a star, however, because of the really poor battery life. It is a month at best. You will run through these quickly, so consider rechargeables. A disappointing drawback...would be nice if the keyboard and mouse would go to sleep or something to conserve power.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty, but little else
Review: 1. It is NOT bluetooth compatible. It will stop functioning if there are other bluetooth transceivers around that are not the included Microsoft one.
2. The transceiver does not function with Bluetooth PDAs or phones, it only supports a small percentage of bluetooth products.
3. The keyboard and mouse will ONLY work with the included Microsoft transceiver (there -are- rare exceptions).
4. The included "convenient" adapter for laptops causes the Bluetooth dongle to poke +4" out of the USB port.
5. Many people are having their keyboard stop working suddenly after days, weeks, or occasionally months. There are workarounds, but they only sometimes work.
6. The keyboard and mouse are slow to respond.
7. There is no off switch on the mouse, so if you transport it remove the batteries.
8. The battery life is atrocious.
9. Sometimes a key on the keyboard becomes stuck down (not physically) and the letter pours across your screen. The only fix is to click elsewhere until it passes. Sometimes it is particularly ugly, such as when backspace is what is stuck.
10. The aforementioned has now occurred twice since beginning this review.
11. It is a very nice-looking setup.
Rating:
Summary: Good product, not perfect.
Review: After having my Wireless Optical Desktop for Bluetooh for about two months now I have few complaints about the keyboard. However, both it and the mouse do require a short "wake-up" period where they are unresponisve after they are left alone for short duration. This isn't really a fault, it is a benefit to conserve batterly life however it is a minor annoyance. My biggest problem witht the set is the mouse, the battery life in particular. My mouse chews through a fresh set of AA's about every week, even using a 3M Percise Mousing Surface designed to incease battery life for optical devices. My solution is using rechargeable batteries, which is the only way I could forsee using this mouse in a cost efficient manner for any duration of time. Performance overall is good, keyboard battery life is also good. However, be forewarned that you might end up spending 5-10 dollars a month just on batteries if you dont go out and get a recharger.
Rating:
Summary: Works fine with Mac OS X
Review: Although the description doesn't list Mac compatibility, this keyboard/mouse/Bluetooth combo works great with the built-in Bluetooth functionality of Mac OS X Panther (10.3.x) and Jaguar (10.2.x). You don't need any additional drivers. In fact, it doesn't help at all installing Microsoft's keyboard and mouse drivers from their other Mac-compatible products - this product does not recognize them. The one shortcoming is that the special functionality keys (MSN Messenger button, e-mail button, AV control buttons, etc.) don't work, but let's be real - nobody uses those things anyway. I've used this product in our conference room for about a year and it's still on the same batteries. Way better range and response than the Logitech RF wireless products it replaced. Wish they had this in white or clear! Sorry to hear about Windows users' troubles with drivers and other products like PDAs and phones, but that's what Windows is all about.
Rating:
Summary: Works beautifully on my Powerbook.
Review: For all the Mac people out there... I have a Powerbook G4 17" which has Bluetooth built into it. There was no installation required. Simply plop in a few batteries and have your Powerbook search for new devices. Done! Regarding battery consumption, I've been using this setup for 3 months and have used two sets of batteries for both components. The keyboard and mouse do powersave if your computer goes to sleep or after a few minutes of activity. A simple nudge will wake them up and it will stream all your keystrokes in once it comes to life. If you have a Powerbook and a good supply a batteries, this setup will give you great mobility or suffice as a would-be docking station.
Rating:
Summary: when it works
Review: Had the keyboard and mouse for 3 weeks and the keyboard stopped working. The computer still detected it but the radio signal stopped. The mouse works fine. I am taking it back to the store.
Rating: 
Summary: Junk
Review: How does one go about wrecking a perfectly good idea? Well I've never seen a blueprint for it, but this MS keyboard combo fails so remarkably they clearly had that missing blueprint plan. Why you ask? 1) It's not a true blue tooth hub as advertised, many phones, printers and future peripherals won't be able to use it as a bridge to your system. 2) It doesn't work consistently (the MS forums are full of reports of failure and issues) and the implementation of a decent FAQ for how to resolve installation issues was non-existent. Either the searching works or you are out of luck. Worse yet, those who could get it to work couldn't tell you why, their system just found it. 3) You need XP SP1 w/the blue tooth hot fix. So it won't work on just any system. 4) I talked with MS tech support when this first came out and spent 3 support calls with them and they eventually told me to return it they couldn't get it to work. If the manufacturer didn't have a good handle of how to get it to go, how can the plethora of PC hobbiests with as many PC hardware combinations hope to? I'll admit it was sexy looking and the idea of no wires and a BT hub was tempting but the three different ones I tried on two PC's wouldn't ever sync up. I really wanted this to work. It didn't. Not on a clean install of XP Pro w/SP1, not on an existing XP Pro system, and not in the demo at the store when I took them back. I had to wait six months for Logitech to come out with one and I have to say their implementation is great. Out of the box and two minutes later it was working. I didn't even reboot. The next reboot a wizard ran on start up and refound my k/m and applied security and voila it has worked since.
Rating:
Summary: Works with Mac OSX
Review: I bought this for my Apple Mac dual 1GHz G4 Quicksilver 2002 machine. I'm using it with the Belkin USB Bluetooth adapter (model F8T003 Version 2). I also did minimal testing thus far with my 15" G4 Al-book 1.25GHz laptop which as bluetooth built-in and found that it works with that as well. My comments below however are my experiences with using the keyboard/mouse on the desktop. Pros:
In a word it works. However, the only "special" keys that work under OSX are the volume up and down and sleep buttons. I intend to use this with my XP Pro box as well but haven't gotten around to testing that yet. The keyboard itself has a great feel with just a slight "bounce" at the end of the key travel that I really like. It's a fairly quiet keyboard as well (not nearly as "clacky" as the Microsoft Natural wired keyboard a colleague at work uses with his Mac). Cons:
After OSX boots and the login screen appears, it does take a few seconds for the OS to "see" the mouse - I usually have to move the mouse back and forth on the pad and/or click the buttons to initiate the connection. The keyboard for its part actually appears to be buffering keystrokes prior to connecting - I'll type in my login password and after about 2 seconds, the characters will rapidly scroll into the password box and I can login. Once the connection with the mouse and keyboard is established, the keyboard has no perceptable delay. Under RAPID mouse movements though, I have to admit that the mouse pointer motion on the screen isn't as smooth or accurate as a wired USB mouse. Another slight annoyance with the mouse is that with all the transceiver guts and batteries, the mouse is heavier than my Logitech wired USB mouse. You really notice it at first during drag-lift-move-lower-drag motions whenever you run out of room on your mouse pad. But I found myself getting used to the extra weight after about 3 days of use. Unknowns:
Battery life? I can't say yet, it's too new. Hopefully, the keyboard and mouse are compatible with lithium AA cells. Will the "special" keys ever be fully usable under OSX? Don't know yet, I hope so, maybe with some third party or existing system tools this is already possible - I haven't researched it enough yet.
Rating:
Summary: Works with Mac OSX
Review: I bought this for my Apple Mac dual 1GHz G4 Quicksilver 2002 machine. I'm using it with the Belkin USB Bluetooth adapter (model F8T003 Version 2). I also did minimal testing thus far with my 15" G4 Al-book 1.25GHz laptop which as bluetooth built-in and found that it works with that as well. My comments below however are my experiences with using the keyboard/mouse on the desktop. Pros:
In a word it works. However, the only "special" keys that work under OSX are the volume up and down and sleep buttons. I intend to use this with my XP Pro box as well but haven't gotten around to testing that yet. The keyboard itself has a great feel with just a slight "bounce" at the end of the key travel that I really like. It's a fairly quiet keyboard as well (not nearly as "clacky" as the Microsoft Natural wired keyboard a colleague at work uses with his Mac). Cons:
After OSX boots and the login screen appears, it does take a few seconds for the OS to "see" the mouse - I usually have to move the mouse back and forth on the pad and/or click the buttons to initiate the connection. The keyboard for its part actually appears to be buffering keystrokes prior to connecting - I'll type in my login password and after about 2 seconds, the characters will rapidly scroll into the password box and I can login. Once the connection with the mouse and keyboard is established, the keyboard has no perceptable delay. Under RAPID mouse movements though, I have to admit that the mouse pointer motion on the screen isn't as smooth or accurate as a wired USB mouse. Another slight annoyance with the mouse is that with all the transceiver guts and batteries, the mouse is heavier than my Logitech wired USB mouse. You really notice it at first during drag-lift-move-lower-drag motions whenever you run out of room on your mouse pad. But I found myself getting used to the extra weight after about 3 days of use. Unknowns:
Battery life? I can't say yet, it's too new. Hopefully, the keyboard and mouse are compatible with lithium AA cells. Will the "special" keys ever be fully usable under OSX? Don't know yet, I hope so, maybe with some third party or existing system tools this is already possible - I haven't researched it enough yet.
Rating:
Summary: DO NOT BUY THIS THING
Review: I don't know alot about computer technology. I bought this keyboard and mouse combo to make computing easier, simpler and more efficient. I was surprised that this device simply does not work. I have a brand new computer and the transceiver is placed in a clear close distance form the device, an ideal setup. Other than a desktop, a priner and a monitor, there are no other electronic devices nearby.
Both the keyboard and mouse go to sleep if left unused for few seconds. You have to click the mouse many times to wake it up, otherwise you are mouseless. Even when the mouse wakes up, it suddenly moves right and left in a jerky manner for few seconds before settling down. If you happenend to leave the curser on a link, you will soon find yourself flipping back and forth between uninvited web pages.
As for the keyboard, it does the same thing. If not used for few seconds, you have to tap any key many times to get it started again. Moreover, you have to stick your eyes on the monitor when typing , because it skips letters and words, letters lag behind your pace, so in general you will be doing alot of editing.
By the way, you will need lots of batteries. I replace the batteries in the mouse about every week, for an average computer use of ~3 hours a day.
Naturally I had to call Microsoft for a fix. Well, it turns out that you have only 90 days of "free" support, which is not truly free, because it is not Toll-free, so you have to pay for long distance (support is located in Canada..!). After the 90 days you have to pay $35 per call...!! so you pay almost have the price of the device to ask a question from Microsoft..!?
And that is not the end of the story. After you call support, they will only give you an appointment, at their latest convenience, usually about 3 wks, and wait for them to call you to solve the problem. If you miss your appointment, wait another month. So good luck...
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