Logitech Cordless Desktop LX700 keyboard and mouse set review

27 October 2004 14:34 GMT / By Stuart Miles

There are always two options - the simple and the impressive. The simple route for a keyboard is a wired affair from Cherry costing £8. It’s clunky, has 105 keys if you’re lucky and that’s it and while it would take a lot of punishment, you’d still be in the land of the beige. The impressive way would be to choose the Logitech Cordless Desktop LX700 mouse and keyboard combo set. We say impressive because there are so many buttons on the keyboard that you can’t but help feel a little overwhelmed.

At the core of the keyboard you’ve still the standard 105 keys. It’s just what Logitech has added that makes this keyboard stand apart from your standard Cherry model. On the left you’ve got a zoom feature, as well as up, down, left and right scrolling capabilities. This is in addition to keys to switch windows and close the current window.

Along the top of the keyboard sits a multimedia console offering fast-forward, rewind, audio presets, mute and anything else you can thing of. Of course that’s not all the shortcuts on the top of the keypad. There’s also the digital media library shortcuts and further shortcuts to email, My Documents, messenger, status and a webcam if you’ve got one.

Get past that lot and the F Keys all have another function other than being F keys - these range from shortcuts to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, undo, redo, print, save and that’s in addition to the four programmable buttons.

Keys themselves have a good response to them and the keyboard also offers a virtually flat typing angle if that’s what you’re after. There are some anomalies, mainly around the delete, home, end and page up / down buttons, but this is where manufacturers always seem to experiment and touch typists should get used to it sooner rather than later.

After seeing and playing with the keyboard we were expecting the same awe factor with the mouse, however it seems that’s not the case. Yes it’s optical and yes it comes with a handy base station that doubles as the charger, but other than that, compared next to the keyboard, its decidedly dull and slightly uncomfortable. The lack of comfort comes from a bulbous rear end that it forces your hand away from the clickable left and right buttons that you find yourself stretching.

Verdict

If you're looking for an all-empowering keyboard that will allow you to access everything from the touch of a button this keyboard will certainly do the trick. However in our minds the keyboard is let down by a disappointing mouse, and as averages rather than individuals count it has affected the score we've given the set. Our advice - buy the set and ditch the mouse as soon as you open the box.