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.

Coolermaster Silencio 352: Case Notes

A few quick notes on the Coolermaster Silencio 352, which I used for the first time recently:

It's a micro-ATX (so relatively small) case aimed at quiet computing. Pictures on the net often make it look glossy, but it has a matte finish. It does show some fingerprints, but not nearly as much as you'd think from some pictures.

The side panel had quite a lot of flex to it — the thumb screws were under a fair bit of tension. It's a budget case, the flimsiness of some of the material shows in this. The side panel has about 3–4mm of noise-absorbing foam.

The case is aimed at quiet computing, and it is pretty quiet. You need to be in a quiet room to even tell it's on. However, with only a minimal setup of i5-6600, one SSD, HDD, DVD drive and the PSU, CPU temperature got really high under load, up to 80°C. I'm not sure how it would go with a graphics card in there as well, so I wouldn't recommend this case for a gaming machine.

You can remove a panel at the top with an optional fan mount, which might make airflow slightly better.

Finally, there is very limited space at the back of the case behind the motherboard. This makes cable management really difficult. But it doesn't look too bad when finished up.

HTC M8S Versus Samsung Galaxy S3

TL;DR: Fixes some of the issues I had with the S3; not without its flaws.

After moving from the Samsung Galaxy S2 to the S3 a few years ago, I was disappointed that in a lot of ways the "upgrade" was most definitely a downgrade. Primary issues were lack of FM Radio (didn't even think to check!) and MTP support was so flaky on Linux I could barely copy files onto the phone — Samsung made it that you could no longer treat the S3 as a plain old USB device, MTP being the only option.

The HTC M8S "infinite selfie" selfie

So this time round I've jumped to HTC, and while I really wanted to like it, there are definitely pros and cons.

M8S advantages:

• Copying files to the phone from a Linux machine just works.
• Side-by-side the speaker in the M5S is much clearer. The S3 is distorted in comparion — this is a two-year-old phone though, so this is likely from wear and tear.
• FM Radio. I had this in the Galaxy S2 and liked the option. We pay a premium for data in Australia, so streaming radio over the internet isn't as practical as it might be in other places. So the radio option was really handy for casual listening, missed it in the S3, glad it's in the M5S.
• The setup wizard seemed pretty user friendly, offering to transfer content from the old phone and to set up various accounts. Since I like to start fresh and don't really do "social" whatevers, I didn't use any of it, but hey, the thought was nice HTC.

Negatives of the M8S:

• No physical access to the battery. Not sure what you're meant to do if there are any problems with the stock battery.
• The default camera settings seem...awkward. Difficult to get decent focus and "nice" looking shots — never really found a phone that was good for photos/video though, could just be user error.
• The USB tethering option on the S3 would switch itself off once unplugged. On the M8S it stays on so if you plug it into another computer it'll activate the tethering again. Not what you want if you (as I do) go from the machine I want to tether to a desktop that has an ethernet connection.
• Switching between vibrate, silent and audible sound profiles is hidden away in the Settings menu system. The S3 had that as an option on the main shutdown/reset screen.
• Auto correct when typing seems pretty aggressive. So far I haven't worked out how to keep the suggestions (which can be useful) but hold off on the actual correction.
• Background data is turned on by default — again, in our expensive data environment this is bound to annoy people when their quotas are sucked dry by stuff they're not even using. Turning it off is hidden away in the data settings, and then there's a constant notification to say "background data restricted" — haven't found how to get rid of the notification. I know it's off, I turned it off. The damn phone doesn't need to constantly remind me.
• In general the phone is notification happy: notifications all the time, with seemingly no control over acknowledging them. The notification system feels pretty all-or-nothing in that regard.
• The power button is on top rather than on the side. Muscle memory needs time to adapt :|

The M8S fixes a number of the sore points I had with the S3, but brings its own annoyances. So overall...it's good (in the sense that all modern phones are marvels of technology) but not great I guess.

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

Review: Deepcool Tesseract

Recently used this case in a general purpose machine for a friend. At only A$49 it's at the budget end, but for what you get it's pretty good value. With 165mm CPU and 310mm GPU clearance it'll fit most setups.

For whatever reason, the Tesseract listing on Deepcool's website doesn't show the windowed version of the case, only the regular version.

Positives

• Lightweight, but doesn't feel too flimsy.
• The fans have both 3-pin and 4-pin molex connectors. Handy if you need it, but could be a negative if you only want the 3-pins as the molex connector is quite bulky.
• Even when plugged into via the 4-pin, the fans were pretty quiet.
• Lots of screws, cable ties and an onboard speaker for troubleshooting. (No rubber mounting grommets for hard drives or anything, but you can't have everything in such a cheap case).
• Internal USB and case button cables are quite long.

• Plenty of drive bays and room internally.
• Cutout behind the motherboard to mount a CPU cooler if needed.
• Large window to show off to show off your insides.

Negatives

• "Punch out" PCI expansion slots, rather than ones held in place with screws.
• No cut out at the top of the case for the 4/8 pin ATX power cable, so you need to route around the motherboard. (This is pretty common in cases in this range).
• The short fan cable on the front-of-case fan would be tricky to reach the 3-pin header on an ATX motherboard.
• The blue LEDs on the fans and the "power on" at the front of the case are all quite bright (could be considered a good or bad thing, depending on how much you like blue LEDs ;)
• Not a whole lot of cable routing room at the back.
• The connectors on the front of the case work okay, but do look a little cheap.

Summary

A good budget case where the value proposition and positives easily outweigh the negatives.

PCT-MP4711 KVM: Nice experiment, not without problems

UPDATE 8/3/2015: The system exhibited similar (though far less pronounced) symptoms without the KVM being plugged in, so it may have been the mouse starting to fail that caused the dropped connections. I've tried a new mouse and it seems okay, but still need to set everything back up again with the KVM to clear its name.

While it looks like I was too hasty on the judgement, the frustrations with the device still stand. Post title updated to reflect the discovery.

A little over 12 months ago I bought a PCT-MP4711 4-port DVI/USB KVM to switch keyboard/mouse/monitor between two or more machines.

In the last week I started noticing some drop outs where the mouse/keyboard would lose "sync" for a few seconds. While working this is annoying, while gaming it's catastrophic. By coincidence I'd just installed a new router at the same time, so I initially thought it was a network issue, but have now proven it was the KVM._{See above: perhaps not}

Don't look at me!

I noted at the time that the 1 year warranty was a bit worrying, and it turns out I was right to be worried. It lasted essentially the 12 months and a few days before becoming unusable. You get what you pay for, etc, etc.

The thing always was a bit temperamental — particularly the key-based shortcuts to switch between settings. Sometimes you'd have to press the combo three, four, five times or more to get it to register. And sometimes it would stop working and require the USB connectors (which give the box its power) to be disconnected to reset the thing.

In the end it was an okay experiment, but I don't recommend anyone buy PCT equipment based on my experience. Unfortunately other equivalent options are much much more expensive, so while it was an okay stop-gap, the lack of longevity is a major let down.