Quick Review: Logitech MK235 Wireless Keyboard/Mouse Combo

Earlier this year I bought a Logitech MK235 mouse/keyboard combo to replace my ageing Rapoo RP-X1800 that lasted longer than I thought it would but in the end succumbed to a thorough trashing from children using it on the HTPC.

Quick thoughts on the MK235:

Pros

• Battery life so far seems okay. Nearly six months in with daily use, no need to change anything yet.
• Keyboard layout is pretty close to being standard. In order to be compact a lot of wireless keyboards have a non-standard layout which is immensely frustrating.
• Wireless receiver is nice and small — can use it plugged into the front USB port without it sticking out precariously.

Cons

• No LEDs to indicate status (eg caps lock). A common issue with lower end wireless keyboards.
• Mouse has no forward/back buttons.
• The biggy: the wireless connectivity is terrible if you're using it as I am in a HTPC situation. It will often lose connection, but will store up those "lost" strokes, and then apply them all at once when it reconnects...if it reconnects soon enough. It makes for a frustrating experience where you're not quite sure if the keypress will be accepted or not at any given time. Compared to the Logitech K400 — which had a crazy-good wireless implementation — this is a bit of a let down. If it's sitting on a desk with good line of site to the receiver it may not be an issue.

Reverting Shutdown Shortcut in Kubuntu 16.04

The updated version of KDE/Plasma in Kubuntu 16.04 changes a number of the default shortcuts compard to those in 14.04. One of the main one I'd muscle-memoried is Ctrl-Alt-Del to initiate a shutdown. There is a way to get this back in 16.04, just requires a couple of steps.

1. Open the Global Keyboard Shortcuts dialog. Select "ksmserver" from the KDE component dropdown. Click the "Log Out" entry. Define a custom shortcut to whatever is preferred. Press Apply.
2. Open the Desktop Session Login and Logout dialog. In the Default Leave Option section, check "Turn off computer".

Now the option to shutdown will be the default option.

Retro Reviews: Logitech G105 and K290

I got these keyboards nearly two years ago but only just found my notes on them, thought I'd post it anyway.

G105 Initial Thoughts: It's a rubber dome keyboard, so the keys are a little bit "squishy", but not too bad overall. It has LED backlighting if you want it — the LEDs are not very bright though. Lots of keys for gaming macros or whatever. The position of the keys down the left-hand-side was somewhat annoying at first until I got used to them.

The G105 has survived nearly two years of gaming use without fault, so its longevity seems reasonable. A lot of my other Logitech peripherals have failed at or before this period, so I'm a bit wary of the brand at the moment but this particular keyboard seems okay. The feel of the keys is not really any better than a $20 keyboard, so you have to balance up whether the extra macro keys and backlighting (and potentially the longevity) is worth a $50 keyboard.

K290 Initial Thoughts: Has a fairly hard, angular wedge shape. The bright blue USB cable doesn't look very good. The feel of the press on the "low profile" keys is difficult to get used to. It's difficult to describe, but the keys feel gritty or chalky to press, like you're pushing them through a crumbly layer of dried mud.

Appearance and feel aside, the thing I like least about the K290 is that to use the function keys (F1, F2, etc), you need to hold down the Blue "FN" key. Really awkward when on the vast majority (all?) keyboards the F keys are the default. This is the most difficult thing to get used to when swapping between other keyboards.

While the K290 has worked fine so far, I wouldn't buy it again due to the negatives I found while using it.

Don't have a pic of the K290 unfortunately, the above image and link is to the Logitech product page

Raspberry Pi B: HDMI Resolution and Localisation Fixes

Following up from yesterday's post on the Raspberry Pi B, I've played around with it a little more and noticed under Raspbian the screen resolution was running at 1776x952 rather than 1920x1080, and that the keyboard was set up for British layouts.

_{Resolution Fix}

To fix the resolution I got into the /boot/config.txt and made a few changes as per various suggestions from the web. First of all you need to run tvservice -m CEA to find the preferred monitor settings. Mine was 16, but replace the text below with the appropriate number. (May also need to run tvservice -m DMT depending on your screen type. DMT is hdmi_group=2 for the settings. See: difference between CEA and DMT.

The summary of changes to /boot/config.txt:

disable_overscan=1
hdmi_drive=2

#overscan_left 24
#overscan_right 24
#overscan_top 16
#overscan_bottom 16
#disable_overscan=0

hdmi_group=1
hdmi_mode=16

The first two lines were already in the file, and just needed to be uncommented. The commented out lines about were in the NOOBS generated section at the bottom. NOOBS default seemed overly aggressive, so I took them all out. The last two lines are the results of the CEA output from above for the preferred setting.

_{Keyboard Localisation Fix}

Default to British keyboard layout causes problems here in Aust because the # key is turned into £ and the @ and " keys are transposed. To update, run the following:

dpkg-reconfigure locales
dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration

Both bring up little text-based wizards. For locales, select en_AU.UTF-8 or similar. For the keyboard config, I selected a generic match for the keyboard I was using, but I think the main thing is to change the "GB" setting to "US" keyboard layout.

Review: Rapoo RP-X1800 Wireless Keyboard/Mouse

Since my Shintaro wireless keyboard decided to go on the fritz, I needed a cheap replacement while the Shintaro goes off on its warranty journey.

The Rapoo RP-X1800 was $19, and I have to say I'm pretty impressed with it. They keys are a little squishy (as to be expected with a cheap keyboard), there is no caps lock LED (also common for wireless keyboards) and no off switch on the keyboard (there is one on the mouse).

But the wireless connectivity was flawless. Compared to the Shintaro, which was never quite right, the Rapoo just worked straight away with no key presses lost, and moving the mouse will wake the computer from screen saver, something the Shintaro trackball never did, to my annoyance. The wireless USB adapter isn't as small as a Logitech one, but is smaller than Shintaro's.

The biggest drawback for use as a HTPC input device is the separate mouse and keyboard parts, but I'd have no hesitation recommending the Rapoo X1800 as a solid budget wireless KB/mouse combo.

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Update 14-Dec-2013:

After running with this combo for a while now, I have noticed occasional glitches when typing, usually trying to type something really fast. Isn't much of an issue (doing passwords is probably the most annoying), but I didn't notice this issue when I first started using the Rapoo so thought I'd update to mention it.

For me Logitech is still the best as far as quality of wireless connectivity goes.

Review: Logitech K400 vs Shintaro Wireless Multimedia Keyboard

I was tossing up between a Logitech K400 and a Shintaro Multimedia (trackball) keyboard for my HTPC. I got the Logitech first for $35, but wasn't entirely happy with it so I got the Shintaro as well ($38+postage) for a comparison. These are their stories...

Shintaro Wireless Media (above) and Logitech K400

My initial reaction was that the Shintaro has a much more solid build than the Logitech. The mouse buttons were clicky and "alive", compared to the gummy feel of the K400 buttons, where you're never quite sure if you've actually pressed it.

The key layout was also much better, and almost for that alone I'd take the Shintaro. The placement of the right shift key and up arrow buttons on the Logitech continually annoyed me. The Shintaro is closer to a "normal" keyboard layout.

Shintaro positives:

• Solid feel and nice clicky buttons, has a quality about it.
• The keyboard layout is close to a regular desktop keyboard. Minimal pressing the wrong key when reaching into the shift/enter/arrow key area.
• I think I prefer the trackball to a touchpad.

Shintaro Wireless Media keyboard

Shintaro negatives:

• Size of the USB receiver. That thing is enormous. I ended up connecting it via a USB extension cable from the back of the case, because it looked so precarious hanging out the front.
• Wireless connectivity can perform really badly. Even with a direct line of sight and less than a metre distance, having the keyboard sitting in the wrong place on your knees can mean up to 80\% dropped characters. When it was connected it was fine, but I still haven't quite worked out what positions will cause it to go bad. (Even a direct line of sight < 3m sometimes drops the occasional character when typing).
• The board "goes to sleep" really quickly. Spinning the trackball doesn't wake it up either, you've got to press a key. I'm so used to bumping the mouse to wake up a computer, it takes a bit to get used to.
• While the build quality is nice, it is quite bulky.
• I sometimes had trouble getting into the BIOS with this keyboard.
• It has a "sync" step you have to perform by pressing a button on the receiver. I seemed to lose sync occasionally, but this may have just been the wakeup problem noted above.
• Takes four AA batteries, and with an estimated 3 month life, probably falls short of the Logitech in that respect.

Logitech positives:

• Rock solid wireless connection. I was typing thing in another room with no line of sight.
• Tiny USB receiver and no need to sync. Just works.
• Size-wise, the keyboard is nice and compact.

Logitech K400 wireless keyboard

Logitech negatives:

• The flimsy build quality and gummy feel of the keys and buttons. It just felt really cheap, and was difficult to know when you'd clicked a button.
• Keyboard layout was problematic. In particular, the Right Shift key is much smaller than normal, with the Up Arrow taking up the space. This means the Up Arrow is easily pressed when searching for the Shift key. Doing any command-line stuff during installation, this was infuriating.

The lengths of the lists don't represent who won in my test, since the negatives to the Logitech K400 and positives to the Shintaro were really big factors in my decision to keep the Shintaro.

A4Tech KLS-5 Makeshift Interim Keyboard

So I built a new computer, and while I'm transferring stuff from the old one to the new one I'm running both at the same time. And I found that I only have one keyboard in the house (!).

Rather than get irritated swapping keyboard cables over all the time, I looked up what was the cheapest wired keyboard I could find, then went out and got an A4Tech KLS-5 wired USB keyboard for $9.

Size comparison to my old Logitech keyboard

It's small, and the build quality is...light, but for the price, I was actually pleasantly surprised. I hit keys and the characters appear on the screen. I couldn't ask for more.

There is only one problem (keep in mind, this is a $9 keyboard we're talking about), and that is the location of the \| key: it's right where Enter is on a normal keyboard. Every single carriage return I hit the \ key instead.

But for a short-term "give me a keyboard so I can type" solution, I would heartily recommend...well, nothing. My cheap keyboard worked. Now you know.