With my old keyboard becoming more and more grubby, I finally decided to do away with it and buy a new one! Whilst looking for a new keyboard and stumbled across the Microsoft Optical Desktop with Fingerprint Reader. Loving gimmicky gadgets, I thought I'd give it a go!When I received the keyboard and mouse, I installed the software as directed, plugged them in, rebooted and away they went! Installation was incredibly simple and speedy. Having logged on for the first time I was greeted with a fingerprint recording screen. Here I simply registered 4 of my fingers (you can register all 10 if you wish) and then rebooted in order to give it a go.
When the computer loaded, it went to the welcome screen as normal. The only visual difference being a little logo of a finger in the top left corner to remind you that a fingerprint can be used to log on. I then placed my finger on the pad and bang - straight into my user area! Fantastic!
Having logged on I then proceeded to register some webpage logons with the device. This again is extremely simple. When you arrive at the page to be stored, simply place your finger on the reader and it will open the save "quicklink" box. After this, when you revisit the site a small reminder pops up on the program bar next to the minimize button. In order to logon all you have to do is touch the fingerprint reader and you are instantly logged in.
The only quirk with the fingerprint reader is that Microsoft does not recommend its use for business applications, online banking or other security critical applications. This expresses a bit of doubt in my mind over the actual level of security this device gives. However, for home use, this isn't quite so important.
Now for the keyboard itself. This is loaded with function buttons that can do almost anything you could want. It has play/pause, stop, skip forward and backwards buttons which can control windows media player or winamp (although winamp only seems to work whilst the program is minimised). It has buttons for email, internet, messenger, log off, sleep and calculator. The keyboard also has buttons labelled 1 to 5 for your own personal shortcuts. These can point to webpages or programs. All the buttons, however, can be customised to whatever function you wish. The keyboard itself is lovely to type on with a nice clean pressing action which doesn't need excessive amounts of force to operate.
The mouse included with the keyboard also is excellent. It is cordless, has a good battery life and is optical. The mouse is very comfortable to use and the buttons have a nice clicking action. The only problem with the mouse is the middle mouse button can be awkward to use without scrolling at the same time! Also, I'm not personally a fan of the scroll wheel. The wheel has a smooth action without the clicking action that most mouse wheels have. This can make it awkward for use in some image or mapping applications where the wheel controls the zoom function. It is, however, very nice to use for webpages or documents! My other dislike about the wheel is Microsoft's speed detection software. This scrolls faster depending on the speed you scroll the wheel. This can make image type applications incredible unpredictable and hard to control! Fortunately this option can be turned off in the control panel. The wheel also has a tilt function to enable easy sideways scrolling. This feature is less useful for me personally, but handy all the same.
All in all, the Microsoft keyboard and mouse set is an excellent choice. It represents excellent value for money given that you are getting a high quality and comfortable keyboard, a decent cordless optical mouse AND a fingerprint reader all in one! I would strongly recommend this product to anyone - whether you really need a new keyboard or not!
