Rating: 
Summary: No more wired mess!!
Review: I got this product about one week ago and I like it very much. Both mouse and keyboard act more than adequately. I like the way it looks. I like some (but not all - some are useless) additonal buttons on the keyboard, particularly 'back/forward' buttons for browsing the web and scrolling (up/down) capability. Both mouse and keyboard are battery-powered. There are some similar solutions on the market that include a cradle for recharging. I don't know yet for how long the battery will work but I am still good (after heavy one week usage) for now. The layout of 'utility buttons' somewhat different and it takes some time to get used to it. Yes, there are some minor changes I would like to see (some of those mentioned in other reviews, such as ability to switch mouse/keyboard off when you are not using it to preserve the battery) but they are really minor and do not spoil my impression from this product.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing and returned...
Review: I had high hopes for this keyboard and the wireless works well. I notice some slight latency if the mouse is at rest. When I have my GPRS phone within 2 feet it interferes terribly. But worst of all is the Intellipoint 5.0 software and the key changes. The new software changes the default mapping for the middle click to "Alt-tab". You can restore application specific behavior by setting it back to auto-scroll (the old default). Also, tilt-wheel technology is stupid. However, I really like the new smooth wheel. I wish Logitech would do that. My biggest peeve - WHY move the delete and end keys around?? Why is delete so big???? And why is the left Ctrl key small??? I don't get it. I use End frequently and it should not have been moved. Very poor focus study I guess. Anyway, it was returned. Caveat emptor.
Rating:
Summary: i dont know why you'd give it less than 5 stars
Review: i have has=d this a week and have had no problems whatsoever. the media buttons are nice. frankly, im not very far from the computer so i dont need 20 feet away access (i dont think i could see that far0 though i guess if you use media center edition of xp this could be an issue the mouse is great, much better than the optical wireless logitech i had the design is nice too and the leather base at te bottom of the keyboard iquite comfortable as for the function keys, those were for geeks anyhow so i think microsoft's changes mke sensefor most people
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Product!
Review: I have only had this keyboard/mice combo for 2 days but absolutely LOVE it so far. I read some reviews of people complaining about a few things such as use in games, difficulty setting up, and the new key set up. As far as gaming, I am an avid first-person-shooter gamer and have used it with Medal of Honor and Unreal Tournament 2004 (demo) and it is working flawlessly. The set up was almost painless. I say almost because the keyboard would not work at first, but one press of the button on the receiver and, voila, everything is perfect. The new key set up (larger delete key, F-keys different, no insert key, etc.) really don't bother me. Actually, for what I do, I haven't noticed a difference. The keyboard has a very nice feel and layout. VERY nice selection of programmable keys and I really like the scroll wheel on the keyboard. Same goes for the mouse, nice layout, good size, nice feel. The new tilt-wheel is a nice addition and I am finding myself using it more and more. I am not usually sold very quickly on items like this but this one has grown on me fast. In fact, this is one of the few online reviews I have ever written. I looked at some other products similar to this and I believe this is the best on the market. And at the price Amazon.com is selling it for, there really is no other competition. Hope this review helped you.
Rating: 
Summary: A perfect keyboard, if the keys were in their normal places
Review: I just bought this keyboard, and I like it a lot. I'm definitely going to keep it. I've had no problems with RF interference, and the responsiveness of both the mouse and the keyboard is excellent. The typing "feel" is nearly perfect and, in my opinion, better than the Logitech-branded keyboards. Furthermore, this is the first keyboard I've found where all of the extra keys are actually useful. I have only three complaints, and they're all relatively minor. First, why does Microsoft feel the need to change the shape and layout of function and cursor keys? Three groups of four function keys is good enough for the rest of the world, and requires a bit less space than the four groups of three found on this keyboard. Second, the "f lock" key, which allows me to use the function keys as function keys doesn't remember its state through reboots. I'd like a way to make it default to always allowing the use of the function keys. Third, the "padded" wrist rest needs to be detachable. It's barely padded at all, and resting your wrists (really the heels of your hands) while typing is bad practice anyway. I guess it's forcing me to finally learn good typing posture, since I have to consciously keep my hands off the wrist rest.
Rating:
Summary: Good goods
Review: I just got the wireless optical elite, and I have to admit I like it a lot. The mouse is responsive and suppoedly has very nice battery life. Some reviews call it heavy and slow, but I disagree. I use my stuff for writing, research, and gaming, and the features these came with do all of that and then some. Some other reviews say the features are too limiting, and they may be for a high end user, but for basic computer use, I love this stuff.
The buttons on the keyboard have great options as far as I'm concerned. I can auto open several favorite sites, and I love the scroll wheel on the keyboard as well as the media player features. Let's face it we're all stuck with Microsoft, and this keyboard uses windows features quite nicely.
If you're looking for a solid wireless set up, this one ain't bad. I'd give it a five stars, but I'm not sure exactly what a keyboard and mouse could do to earn five stars... I'm glad I bought this one, though.
Rating:
Summary: Gene Simmons would lick this keyboard
Review: I just picked this product up today, and it rocks!
The keyboard is solid, and comfortable. I can't get used to those ridiculous ergonomic keyboards... I feel like Stephen Hawking in a badminton competition with those things. The F Lock only works with a few Microsoft programs (if you're surprised, punch yourself in the scrotum). The hot keys are easy to program, and come in handy when I have an unexpected visitor walk in behind me. The padded wrist rest makes typing from my lap comfortable- being six feet tall, that's no small accomplishment. The leather feel of the rest is awesome, it feels like a good quality plastic piece from the interior of a car. It's spongy and leatherish- like the dashboard of the 2001 Nissan Altima my ex-girlfriend drives. These are the unexpected details that make this keyboard, alone, worth the price of admission.
Speaking of cars, it's like the Microsoft industrial design team has spent plenty of time driving their Mercedes around town. The mouse is simply solid, comfortable, and amazingly accurate. The heft says quality, not obesity. It's like Microsoft decided to plagiarize the tactile impressions of closing the door of a late-90's Mercedes S-Class. It just feels good. My only gripe with the mouse is that the scroll wheel doesn't scroll all that fast; but you can change that with the included software tailoring system. The tracking problems some customers have had with this are related to signal problems- which I'll get to later.
(...)
Back to the keyboard, the music controls in the middle top of it are simply awesome! I listen to my music library when I'm working, and it comes set up to manipulate the controls on iTunes with no drama. Fast forward, repeat, pause, stop, mute, and volume all in one place without switching windows and jacking something up. The best features other than the multimedia controls are the scroll wheel and navigator buttons on the left side. This rules, and makes doing things like writing this simple and efficient. There's also a calculator hot-key, which is something I didn't even think I'd want in a keyboard. It looks as if Bill Gates is thinking of more than just building a legion of gold robots to take over the world...
The only thing this keyboard won't do is a convincing Bill O'Reilly impersonation... however, there are some handy Ctrl shortcuts printed on the keys which make copying and pasting "SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" and "NO SPIN ZONE!" very easy and quick for an infinite amount of times. I guess this keyboard can do a convincing Bill O'Reilly impersonation. Now if it only came with a blotchy surface, elusive registration information, and halitosis...
Signal problems aren't exactly a mystery to me. The problem is that some people don't know how to read the manual that comes included with the product. You heard it here first: illiterate apathy makes for bad product reviews... This is the problem with plug'n'play, the same people who complain about problems are the same people who create MTV's TRL play list: IDIOTS. I've played with ranges up to 15 feet without a problem, and my receiver is INSIDE MY DESK. The problems these people have experienced are due to interference, and Microsoft has thought of including a channel switching system so it will find a clear frequency... just like a good cordless phone from 1991 will.
This is a BAD ASS piece of computer equipment if you don't wear a pink crash helmet with fluorescent dinosaur stickers. I can't begin to explain how satisfied I am with this purchase- it rocks! And it's not like I'm some techno-giddy dork that speaks in binary code: I'm a personal trainer.
Yeah. I can be jockish.
Buy this.
Rating: 
Summary: garbage. zero stars. do NOT buy if you are a gamer!
Review: i must start off by saying that i am a big fan of microsoft hardware. at least, the hardware they USED to make. i currently own a natural keyboard pro and wireless intellimouse explorer 1.0, and those are both sweet pieces of work. when i saw this deal for 80 bucks, i just couldn't pass it up. the black would match my computer nicely, and even though this wasn't a split ergonomic keyboard, i figured i could adjust. not to mention i had read that the battery life in the mouse was considerably longer in the 2.0 version of the mouse. alkalines never last more than 3 weeks in the 1.0 mouse. sadly, this was an incredible disappointment. i just can't get used to the rearrangement of certain keys ("insert" being removed, "delete" double-sized, etc.), and the "caps lock" and "num lock" lights are now on the wireless receiver instead of the keyboard. where is the logic in that? the purpose of wireless is to not be tied to your desk, but when you have to glance over to the wireless dongle to see lights that have heretofore always been on the keyboard, well... and "F-Lock"? i won't even get started on that. and the mouse. the hardware itself isn't too bad. it's a little smaller than the 1.0 mouse. i have large hands, so the big 1.0 mouse was a good thing. still, this new one is manageable. but the software! intellipoint 5.0 is the sorriest crap-for-drivers i have ever seen come out of microsoft. they must have gotten it backwards- it SHOULD have been called "unintellipoint 0.5". as has been stated, it is actually a huge step backwards from IP 4.1, and i am just appalled at its worthlessness. being able to map keystrokes to mouse buttons was a blessing because many of the games i play use a lot of buttons, and i could set the mouse's thumb buttons for common commands instead of hunting for them on the keyboard. but no more! unintellipoint 0.5 has removed all that was good in version 4.1. my question here is, in today's age of 100+ gigabyte hard drives, what is the logic behind removing a few lines of code from a paltry 5 megabyte driver file? somebody HAD to have been on hallucinogens to think this was a step "forward" in driver design. to answer someone else's question, i tried version 4.1 with this mouse. if you have the mouse in the usb port, the software won't even load on startup because it doesn't recognize the newer mouse. if you plug the mouse into the ps/2 port, the software WILL work, but the mouse skips all over the screen as if it were possessed. i tried the channel reset buttons, i rebooted several times, i uninstalled and reinstalled 4.1, but all to no avail. it will not work properly with 4.1, and 0.5 is utter garbage, so this nice, innovative mouse is made useless because of poor software design. the moral of this story is that i would not even recommend this keyboard and mouse to someone i hated. there are better ways to spend 80 dollars. i can only wonder if the "geniuses" who coded Windows Millennium are now in charge of the hardware design department at microsoft... EDIT: i retract my gripe about the "f-lock" and lack of LED indicators on the keyboards. after shopping around, i have discovered that this seems to be more the rule than the exception anymore with keyboards (can you tell that the last keyboard i bought for myself was in 1999?). i suppose if i were forced to buy a new keyboard, i could live with f-lock, but the new button arrangement is still too much for me. my stance on the mouse software remains firm, however. i can only hope microsoft wisens up and releases intellipoint 5.1 that restores programmable keystrokes. i WILL buy this mouse (but not keyboard) if they do that. i have a feeling i am not alone. if microsoft wants to surpass logitech, they must improve their drivers. perhaps good hardware for office workers, but serious gamers should spend their money elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: A DREAM setup that works as well as it looks
Review: I recently replaced my old, out dated wireless setup with this new sweet piece of equipment from microsoft. First the mouse handles like an abosoulte dream. I play many games, so accuracy is a big factor in how I rate a mouse. The main reason I purchased this new wireless desktop was because my old wireless ball mouse was terrible at tracking. This new microsoft mouse works like a dream. No skipping and no problems what so ever. It is the perfect size for 95% of people and the smooth scroll wheel and the back and forward buttons work beautifully. The Keyboard is equally impressive. Five customizeble hot buttons are easy as pie to program, a set of media keys, file hot buttons and internet hot keys all work as expected. The keys don't get scratched up, so the keyboard always looks brandnew and the complementary keyboard scrollwhell with back and foward buttons cannot have enough nice things said about them. The keyboard and mouse DO only work within 6 feet of the reciever as advertised by microsoft which is fine for me and most people. If you do want your desktop to work futher away go for the bluetooth setup, but its not fair to complain about the elite because it performs as detailed by the company. I haven't found any problems with the software, and again, for the vast majority of people it is more than adequate. Overall this system has worked as I expected and I would highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Intellipoint software takes a step back
Review: I was about to go out and buy this new keyboard and mouse combo, but I decided to try out the new Intellipoint software version 5.0 before doing so, and I'm glad I did!
For those that don't know, Intellipoint is the software the controls MS mice. I am currently using IP v4.2 with my Intellimouse Opitcal and when I 'upgraded' to version 5.0 (which comes with all newere MS mice), I was shocked to find that they REMOVED certain features! First of all, you no longer have the ability to customize the mouse buttons at the application level. This may not seem like a big deal if you've never had this capability, but once you've gotten used to it, it's hard to be without. Another thing is that the scroll wheel no longer works with certain applications (such as Visual Basic 6), even though version 4.2 worked great. I've also had issues trying to map keystrokes to the left and right mouse buttons, and other people have reported some stability issues with the 5.0 version.
The only thing I can guess is that somebody at MS was smoking the phatty on this one. And it's really a shame too, because the Intellipoint software was really the only advantage that MS mice had over Logitech's offerings. Basically, I would recommend this package ONLY if they update the intellipoint drivers to add back in the features that they (for whatever reason) removed. I sure hope they do because I really want this keyboard and mouse!
(NOTE: I've heard that you can run version 4.2 of Intellipoint with this package, but you can't use the horrizontal scroll. I've personally never tried it.)
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