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Hewlett Packard Wireless Mini Keyboard

Hewlett Packard Wireless Mini Keyboard (HP Consumer: XC373AA#ABC)
VPN: XC373AA#ABC
Vendor: HP Consumer
Price: $0.00 - $0.00 CAD from 0 stores
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Hewlett Packard Wireless Mini Keyboard
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Rating: 10/10
With 1 User Reviews
Breen_O@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 01/29/11
Cons: No Function-key Toggle, A Few Poorly Placed Keys, No Backlight, No Toggle LEDs, Wireless Needs Line-of-sight

Pros: Excellent HTPC Input Device, Great Design, Quality Construction, Energy Efficient, Simple Setup, wireless, Cheap price - good quality, Responsive Input
Comment:
Best HTPC Keyboard I've evern OwnedHello fellow couch potato surfers! I've been using various wireless keyboard/mouse combos to control my HTPC over the last 5 years, but none has been better than the HP Wireless Mini Keyboard (which I am using to type this review) that I picked up at Staples last month. This was an impulse purchase and I paid full retail for it, but it can be found on the net for under $40.My last HTPC input device, the former champion of couch surfing, was the Logitech diNovo, an aggravating clamshell design with too-small keys, a crummy finger trackpad, and lackluster battery life (thanks to the keyboard backlighting). HP's Mini has none of these problems. By comparison, the HP Wireless Mini Keyboard can be had for 1/2 to 1/3 the price, and is a better device overall. It's so good that I've been writing reviews about the HP Mini across the net, something I've never done before!This keyboard definitely comes packed with great features for the price. It is about the size of a netbook keyboard, stylish in a minimalist way, and fairly thin yet sturdy and well made. It's just right for on-top-of-your-lap typing. The keys have a nice feel to them and respond well to key presses. The built in optical finger navigation works very well given the size of the input surface and the high resolution of my TV (1920x1080). The keyboard uses two AA batteries and battery life has been excellent so far, a fact that is no doubt helped along by the lack of backlighting and LED toggle indicators.On the down side, the lack of backlighting could be a problem in low light situations, and the lack of LED indicators makes it impossible to tell if a toggle key, such as Caps Lock, is engaged without actually typing. The function keys (F1 - F12) are activated by holding down the 'fn' key first and then tapping the desired function key, and there is no way for the 'fn' key to act as a toggle key (which would have been my design choice), rather than a shift modifier key. The default, unshifted mode of the function key row is to facilitate multimedia access, which is problematic in the cases of F2 and F3, as they are sleep and account lock keys, respectively. Hitting either of these keys accidentally can be bothersome, and I have read of some people physically removing the keys to avoid the problem altogether. I also had to use an extension cable to position the keyboard's USB micro receiver within line of sight, as the signal was intermittent when it was plugged into the back of my HTPC (a Shuttle SH55J2). This might have been avoided if HP had used Bluetooth instead of its own proprietary 2.4GHz wireless protocol.One last gripe I have read about, although it is not mine, is that the optical finger sensor doubles as the right-mouse button, with a separate left-mouse-only button on the left side of the keyboard. Some complain about this arrangement, and the fact that there isn't a toggle on the keyboard to reverse the mouse button assignments. I would counter with two points: 1) any OS I've ever used allows for mouse button swapping; and 2) dragging is very difficult to perform if you are depressing the sensor that also tracks movement. To be thorough, I tried swapping the buttons in Windows for about an hour to make sure I wasn't missing something... and I wasn't. It was aggravating to use the sensor with mouse buttons swapped, and I was more than happy to go back to the way HP's designers intended it to be used.The Bottom Line: The HP Wireless Mini Keyboard is an excellent input device for HTPC usage that works better than more costly devices. Despite flaws, I have given it top marks for being best in the HTPC input class. Highly recommended.

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