Logitech K400 Wireless Touch Keyboard

I bought this to use with a small 'under telly' PC that's mainly used for a bit of web surfing and watching downloaded iPlayer content. The PC runs Ubuntu GNU/Linux and I already had a wireless keyboard/mouse combo which worked usually, but suffered from reliability issues - the mouse had a habit of going crazy unless kept close to the receiver (like 1m away). Plus it was heavy and used loads of batteries.

So I was after either a trackball or trackpad keyboard. I happened to see this one first and the price was reasonable so I bought it.

Initial impressions were excellent - I plugged the tiny usb dongle into the PC and rebooted. First off, this keyboard works with the BIOS so you can alter settings without plugging in a different one.

Secondly... it just worked with Ubuntu. Straight away, with no fuss, from a distance farther away than it's possible to read text on the TV screen. No faffing with drivers or anything else. Phew :)

The keyboard layout is a little quirky, but no worse than many laptops. As this is smaller and [much] lighter than a normal keyboard, the large trackpad takes up the space where the number keys would usually be. Also the enter key is rather small and some of the auxiliary keys are scrunched up or moved around a bit. Page/up down and similar are accessed via a function key but this is all clearly marked on the keyboard and easy to get used to. The keys require a fairly firm press to register - if you're a light typer you might find the od drped chrcter.

The large trackpad is very responsive and works accurately. I have no problem clicking on menus and buttons and so on. The only minor issue I have is that it can be hard to resize windows sometimes in Unity - but this is mostly down to Canonical's current 'my way or the highway' approach to its users at the moment :-| (the grab area for the window edges is very tiny).

Oh yes, my one reservation was the loss of the 'scroll wheel' functionality from the mouse. But I discovered that you can scroll using two parallel fingers as the trackpad supports 'multi-touch'.

I would prefer the mouse buttons to be a little further away from the trackpad too but again it's just a case of getting used to the layout as I'm not normally a trackpad user.

The other hardwired buttons are a second 'left click' mouse button on the left hand side which is very useful. and mute/volume controls which work in Linux. Also there's a 'home' button which opens your homepage if you're in a web browser, or your home folder if you're not. The usual plethora of 'media' buttons is missing but as I never used them that's fine by me. Oh, there's a tiny on/off switch too.

The keyboard is amazingly light and can be held in one hand to type with the other if required. There are no fold-out legs but the battery compartment provides a slight angle to the keys when the unit is on a flat surface.

Apparently the batteries should last for around a year.

All in all I'm very pleased with this purchase and would recommend it to anyone looking for a small/light ingegrated keyboard and mouse replacement. Oh, there's space to carry the dongle around in the battery compartment too if you're taking it with you to use elsewhere. Nice little touch.

This is a compact SMALL keyboard (35cm wide) which should be used for media pc's, servers etc. Its NOT a keyboard suitable for typing a PhD. For media pc's, under TV computers etc it is EXCELLENT and i'd rate it with a 100 stars if I could. The top left "left click" mouse button is an excellent feature I've come to use a lot, so is the two finger "swipe to scroll" feature. Really a robust and great keyboard. The battery seems to last forever. Highly recommended. That said, the price seems unnaturally high for the moment, try froogle co uk.

I've used Keysonic wireless keyboards for 3 years Keysonic ACK-540RF Wireless Mini Keyboard with Built in Touchpad and on the failure of my second this week, I decided to change brands; this time with the money from the Square trade insurance cover on my last to buy this one.

If you are used to having the touchpad centrally located -- it's odd initially to get used to it being on the right. Even though it has a bigger area for the touchpad and that seems a better idea -- my digits were still automatically going to the wrong place - a little over a week later,it's like this was my original keyboard.

Right and left click feel better and aren't clunky when pressed -- you can scroll the edge of a window by depressing the mouse icon and moving your finger on the touchpad up or down or by using two fingers at once on the touchpad -- if cursor is near text depressing the mouse key it lets you select text for editing.
Absolutely no problem using a wireless mouse alongside this -- model that seems best in conjunction is the sony Sony VAIO Wireless Laser Mouse - Black laser mouse (made by Logitech for Sony Vaio)

Advantages of this over the Keysonic are 2 AA batteries having a higher current capacity than the AAA type batteries in such other models. Hopefully this means longer running times.
Dedicated Volume up/down,a homepage key and volume mute all work instantly with clear symbols.Also it Seems classier.

Possible disadvantages are the Keysonic turned off after not typing for a while automatically and you "woke it up" by pressing a key -- this one has an on/off switch,so it does leave us consumers responsible for remembering to conserve battery when not in use.
{*edit -- continuous use over a week has not drained batteries at all}

Logitech make various keyboards and optical/laser mice for Sony and Alienware/Dell and this was what swayed me to try it.

The keys do require firmer pressing than the keysonic,but the plus is it's harder to hit an adjoining key than on my last model.

What makes me feel uncertain about the sturdiness of this model is the thinness of it, it looks good,but it is easy to twist with hands each side in opposite directions applying light pressure-there is some give-this wasn't easy to do at all with my previous model.* So far so good, the flexibility seems to allow for a little more shock-proofing.

So I'm basically saying I'm satisfied with this from new for now-in its function -- the dongle receiver is really tiny,and unobtrusive compared to my last model which stuck out like a sore thumb.

The only thing missing on every wireless keyboard I've had is a low battery indicator -- it must be possible to transmit battery state to the receiver and have a notice pop on screen -- i'd love that!

If I have any issues with it ,or it turns out my initial apprehension is unfounded I shall share thoughts here -- so for now I would call unit very good,but not for prolonged serious typing.

It's a keyboard very well suited for sofa or bedroom use whilst putting your feet up to do a few evening emails or HDTV media player/itunes control.

It's also fine on Windows 8 (64 bit release preview)