Review of The Kensington PilotBoard Laser Wireless Desktop Set

I have always called my room the 'motherboard room'. I am the only one in the entire house who knows how to set a cable modem, a network, and any other peripheral that has to do with the Internet, or the computer.

Unfortunately though, because of my knowledge I am the go to girl whenever the network goes down, everyone expects me to figure it out; even if that means sitting on the phone for an hour with rude tech help from India.

If you were to come into my room, you'd immediately think that it were some nerds room from a scifi movie. It is sincerely out of this world, with wires running from one end of the room to the other, and blinking lights in every color imaginable. My room breaths technology, but at the same time, the wires have gotten ridiculous.

I was given a $100 gift card to Best Buy this past summer, and normally I'd spend the money on some ridiculous Playstation 3 video game. However once I got there, and got to looking around, I stumbled down the keyboard and mouse isle, and figured I could use a new set. I had been using a wired mouse and keyboard that came with my desktop, and as soon as I spotted the available wireless and mouse sets, I knew immediately it would be something I could use. Plus I'd be able to substitute 2 wires from my rooms decor.

I was initially going to go with a set by Microsoft, but the wireless ouse I used in the past for my laptop went belly up within a week, so even though Microsoft's sets looked sweet, I knew not to make the same mistake twice.

Instead I went with the Kensington PilotBoard Laser Wireless Desktop Set.

I was going to skip on it due to the price tag marked on the set. $89.99 for a keyboard and mouse??? Yack...too much!!!

However after feeling how solid the wireless mouse was, and how comfortable it felt in my hand, I went with it.

The mouse has a tilt wheel in the middle of it, and a right and left click button. The left click button seems to work flawlessly, the left click button though requires a bit more finger muscle to get it to respond, which is relatively annoying when I'm trying to copy and paste.

The mouse also has 6 programmable buttons to sync with your PC. However I never bothered with these settings because I didn't feel like messing around with buttons I'd never use anyway.

There are however 6 of them, if you are the type who feels the need for such things.

If you don't program the buttons though, it comes factory set with two silver buttons that rest on the left side of the mousefor you to press for instant forward and back commands for web navigating. I never use them but they are there for convenience.

The set comes with a USB stick in order to register the keyboard and mouse. You simply plug it into the PC, and the stick will detect the keyboard and mouse from about 20 feet away.

Keyboard:

When I bought the Kensington set I was primarily in it for the keyboard. I liked knowing that I could simply power on my PC, hook up a cable to my HDTV, and use the web right on my bed thanks to the keyboard that I could simplyu plop down on my lap.

It works very well, but occasionally it does not register a keystroke, and I missing a letter. Thank God for spellcheck!

I don't see it as an enormous problem, but it is a problem that needed to be brought up nonetheless.

Now what I like about the keyboard, aside from the fact that it is wireless, is the fact that I can lower the PC's volume with just a tap of a button. These command buttons are located on the far left hand side of the keyboard, and are not distracting to typing. I do like having them there though for when I am far away from the PC's speakers, and I want to lower or higher the volume. I can also use the keys to fast forward, rewind, pause and play video. A quick touch to the handy little mute button is also convenient.

The keys are also nice feeling on the fingers, and have a nice quite tapping sound. The space-bar though at times will not respond to light clicking, and will require a harder press down. It's rare, but it happens.

Is The Price Worth The Product?

As much as I like the Kensington Wireless Desk Set, it does have it's flaws. The USB stick for instance. I usually switch it between my laptop and desktop. I dropped it on the floor and the thing literately feel apart. It's pretty flimsy so you have to be careful with it. Luckily for me I was able to snap the thing back together.

The mouse is ver responsive, but the keyboard not as much.

All in all I would say that the set is not worth the $90.00 I paid for it. Slap it down to $30.00, and I'd say yes, this is a pretty decent set, but at the price associated with it as of now, it's far too overpriced for the flaws that come packed with it.

Review of Lexmark X4650, 3 in 1 Wireless Printer

At home I have been using this huge old school Lexmark X73 printer. I loved this printer though because no matter how many pages I printed on it, it seemed to have an endless supply of ink. The printer also scanned, and copied flawlessly.

Sadly though after using her for a good 5 years now, I decided I needed an upgrade; especially considering the fact that the scanner plate was now covered with mold on the inside. You see she has lived in the basement with me for years. Seeing that I didn't technically keep up with cleaning the machine, it was my own fault.

I knew though that I would be staying loyal to the Lexmark name. My sister recently got herself a wireless HP printer for Christmas, and I was pretty damn jealous that she could sit on the couch with her laptop, and have documents print up on command in the bedroom 20 feet away. The technology amazed me, and I too wanted to be part of this new wireless printer technology.

I hit up my local Sam's Club where I came across a wireless Lexmark 4 in 1 for $129.99. I however had no need for a fax machine, so I knew that I'd be spending extra money on this added feature that I'd never use.

I did however find the perfect wireless printer next door at Target for a smooth $89.99. TheLexmark X4650, 3 in 1 Wireless Printer!

I was excited, but at the same time felt pretty guilty about having to box up the ole X73 in order to slap down this newer, slimmer, wireless model.

Appearance:

The X4650 is a good fit design for my rooms overall appearance. My HDTV has a sleek black glossy finish, my monitor has the same finish, and so do my other electronics. The sleek black glossy finish. It's gorgeous, but at the same rate, the finish is a major dust magnet.

Although the Lexmark didn't have that same high gloss black finish, it is primarily black in color, and had a more textured finish, as to not collect as much dust as its sleek high gloss black roommates. The side panels of the printer are a shiny textured silver color. I would have preferred it to be all black though.

Size:

Compared to my X73, this model was a hell of a lot smaller, however some folks are calling this model large. I beg to differ, especially if your old model is a desk hog.

The X4650 is 11.3H X 18.0W x 22.1D. It's your decision on whether or not it is large. For me though, it's decent, and easily fits on my desk without looking like a room hog.

The printers paper feed seems a little bit flimsy, but so long as your not abusing the thing, it should hold up well enough. I imagine the printer will only hold around 80 to 100 or so pieces of paper without jamming. My old printer could easily hold an entire stack of paper, so the decrease was a bit annoying.

The bottom of the printer has a slot that can be pulled out to collect documents that have printed. This slot I also found to be a little flimsy and thin. In fact if you were to accidentally bump into it, I imagine it wouldn't take much force for it to break.

The scanner is located of course underneath the printers top hood. It can be lifted up, and will scan documents with either a press of a button on the printer, or by commanding it to do so using your computer.

The printer is a 3 in 1, and will scan, copy, and print in the same manner. A touch of a button on the printer, or by commanding it to do so on the PC.

The Lexmark also has an easy to read OLED screen located at the far right of the printer. Here you will find all of your menu buttons.

Directly at the front of the printer I found available slots for easy plug in features. You can plug in memory cards, pictbridge, or USB slots for instant photo printing without having to use the computer.

I liked having this available feature, but I knew that I'd likely never use it. For others in the house though, this feature made life simple for them; especially my mom who is a bit computer illiterate.

Hook Up:

Now I thought that hooking the wireless printer up to my network would be difficult, however this was not the case.

The X4650 came with an installation CD. I simply plopped the CD into my computer and followed the extremely easy instructions that displayed the steps on my screen.

The instructions were very basic, and honestly I could have done without them. For those though who are new to the wireless world, and networks though having them on hand is very helpful.

Basically it consisted of teaching me how to plug the printer into a wall outlet, how to add the included ink cartridges, and how to hook the printer up to my network.

The installation process was a breeze. After the printer was hooked up all I had to do was choose my network, and I was done.

Once the printer was completely set up, it then printed up an alignment page, and I was finished.

I could now print, scan and copy till the ink cartridge ran out of ink.

Now the ink cartridges area little bit small compared to my X73's larger cartridges, however since having the printer I have been printing high volumes of colored and black text documents with no signs of fading colors.

Print Quality is clear, crisp, and looks very nice. Printing photos on regular paper also looks pretty damn beautiful. On photo paper the printer handles well, but the quality for photo printing is a bit lacking.

Seeing that I didn't really purchase it for photo printing though, I am pretty happy with the quality on regular printing paper.

Besides the nice printing quality, I really love the fact that this model turns on as soon as I go to print a document, and turns off after a few moments of not being in use. It saves energy by turning itself off, and it powers on as soon as I need it to. I do not have to actually go over to the printer to hit the power on button, and this saves me time.

Now that the printer is connected to the network, everyone else in the house can also print documents on command, which is very cool.

Pages Per Minute:

According to the box, this particular printer is supposedly capable of printing out 25 pages per minute mono, or 18 pages for color prints.

I have to disagree with this though, because printing out a 20 page document took the printer around 2 minutes to complete, and this was just simple all black text pages.

The printer also took nearly 4 minutes to print out a colored photograph page.

Although the printer is a bit slow when printing, it was nothing that bothered me all too much. My X73 was far worse when it came to print speeds.

If speed is a key factor though when it comes to your purchasing decision, than do know that it is a bit of a slow go, and this particular model may not be for you.

Overall:

The Lexmark X4650 is an easy to use wireless printer for an affordable price.

If you do not have a need for faxing, or high volumes of photo printing at fast speeds, then I'd recommend this model to you. However, if you want it primarily for printing photos you may want to pick up a different printer. The quality is good for photo printing, but not excellent.

All in all though this model is a good buy in my opinion. Lexmark brand has never disappointed me, and as far as things have been going, this particular printer does what I need it to do, when I need it to.