In recent years Microsoft's cordless keyboard and mouse combinations have fallen behind Logitech’s offerings in terms of aesthetics and features. The Wireless Optical Desktop Elite aims to change that, with a freshly redesigned keyboard and the wireless Intellimouse Explorer 2.0, both featuring horizontal scroll wheels, aimed squarely at the Cordless MX duo. Do they succeed?
To be honest, I’ve never really been much of a fan of the button-laden multimedia superstar keyboard. My board previous to this one was a Microsoft Internet keyboard, and by the time I managed to locate and press the tiny “home page” button, I could’ve double clicked the E on my desktop four or five times. The Elite keyboard, however, has made me a complete convert.
The board itself looks deceptively huge, but in actuality, it was no wider than the Internet keyboard it replaced. This is accomplished with some clever key re-arrangement, which I’ll get to later. In terms of looks, this keyboard screams style that’s a major improvement over their standard multimedia keyboard, with a sexy black\gun metal two-tone color scheme, and a marginally leather-like cushioned wrist rest.
The keys are a translucent black plastic that continue the stylish theme. Here you can see how the designers recovered the extra width of the scroll wheel. Some people have cried foul over the re-positioning of the six (now five, the insert key is shared with print screen) standard keys above the arrow keys, but I like the new arrangement. The delete key is easily the most used out of any of these keys, so why not make it bigger? I do have to wonder, though, as to why the insert key was chosen to jump ship, rather than the home key. I rarely use insert, but in all my years of computing, I have never used the home key, ever.
