Pros and Cons

Ok, I have used this keyboard and mouse for a year now, so what other things can I talk about? This is where I'd like to bring up all the general good and bad points found with the product.

Almost all keyboards have a few special keys, like one to bring up the default web browser or email, but the diNovo has a special key mechanism (Enhanced F-Keys) which turns the entire Function Key set into a lot of special keys ("new", "save", "print", "My Computer", "My Pictures", "My Music" to name a few). They easily make one more efficient. The downside is that the key to toggle the enhanced F-keys is between the F1 and ESC keys, so it does occasionally get pressed by mistake putting me into enhanced F-Key mode when I don't want to be (like while in the middle of fighting a Golden Saint while playing Morrowind).

Another feature I really love is that screen flashes for certain functions/buttons. For example….gone are the days of "lights" on keys like Num Lock and Caps Lock. It actually flashes a huge message on the screen when it is pressed. This is great for those times you are typing away and press one of them by mistake. You are not looking at keyboard to see it, but the message on the screen gives it away.

The mouse has the shortest battery life of the three powered devices (for obvious reasons), but still has a good long charge. I can often go 4 or 5 days before it tells me it needs to be charged. How does it tell me? The system tray displays the battery icon, in addition there is a small led on top of the mouse which flashes red.

Fig. 8 Tray Icons

Recharging is easy - just drop it into the base where a few metal contacts on the bottom of the mouse make contact with coincident prongs on the base to charge. It generally takes about 5-8 hours to charge back up. Also, be warned that if you have a dusty house (like mine), sometimes the contacts seem to not make good contact because of dust either on the mouse contacts or the base contacts (but not really a fault of the diNovo).

The recharger unit is more than just a battery recharger; it is also a bluetooth hub. The recharger/hub allows any other bluetooth devices you may have connect to the computer. So if you want to use bluetooth, with this product you do not need to go out and buy a seperate hub for all of your bluetooth devices.

Fig. 9 Mouse Charger/Hub

There was no manual that came with the keyboard (nor did I find one online) and some functionality was not completely obvious. Especially things like getting songs to display in the media pad, remapping special keys, etc… I really wish Logitech would consider the user more on their products. They have no user manuals for products, perhaps because they consider them such "simple products", however, if they plan to make their products more advanced (like the diNovo) then they need to rethink that policy. Additionally, I find it irksome that their website does not make it easy to find hard specs on products. For example, I could not find specs on the mouse (MX900) on their website, but the info was printed on the side of the box. That also makes it quite difficult to research online ahead of time for hardcore enthusiasts for whom specs really matter.

Another feature that is lacking on the keyboard that I find extremely annoying is that the old ALT+NNN trick for extended ASCII characters does not work. I don't use that trick much anymore, so it shouldn't annoy me, but for some reason it does. Maybe because its one of those old-timer tricks that I sometimes used to impress newbies that now I couldn't do. That trick was invaluable back in the DOS days…especially when writing up lab reports in college and needing to include greek letters and such.

As stated earlier, the media pad claims to display song title and artist when playing music from files, but what they don't tell you in that pitch is that it only works if you are playing the music through Window Media Player or MusicMatch Jukebox (shareware version included on CD). Personally, I don't like either of those programs to play my music and because the manual gives no info, I could not determine a way to make it work with WinAmp (my program of choice). There may be a way to do it, but I could certainly not find documentation to help explain it.

There is also an application (which is part of the driver install) called Media Desktop. This is a nice little full screen, large font application for using to enjoy media (music, pictures, and movies) from across the room. Because of the long range of Bluetooth it is anticipated that some may wish to use this from across the room (like I sometimes do). It is especially designed with an extremely simple interface with things extremely large to be readable from far away. The Media Desktop is activated by pressing the media key (accessible from both keyboard and media pad).

Fig. 10 diNovo™ Media Desktop