Microsoft Remote Keyboard for Windows XP Media Center Edition Review

Ready, Steady, Glow

The main part of the keyboard is, well, a keyboard with a smooth if plasticky typing feel; while you must use the top-row numbers instead of a numeric keypad, we were glad to see separate cursor control and arrow keys instead of the shifted double-duty arrangement found in numerous notebooks.

After abandoning our desktop keyboard, we adjusted quickly to the unplugged one, apart from one slight stumble: The Escape, Home, End, Page Up, Page Down, Delete, and Insert keys are only half-sized, and if you stab toward the top right corner for Delete -- as we're accustomed to with laptops -- you'll likely hit End instead.

The sides and top of the keyboard duplicate most of the buttons (except Print) found on a Media Center PC's remote, for quick access to folders and functions such as Live TV, Recorded TV, the TV programming guide, My Music, My Pictures, and My Videos, as well as the green Start button that launches Media Center itself.

At the left are next/previous, play, record, pause, stop, rewind, and fast-forward buttons -- the record button thoughtfully recessed so it's less likely to be hit accidentally -- plus volume, mute, and channel or chapter up/down buttons for music, movies, and TV. To navigate Media Center itself, the right side offers a four-way navigation compass with central OK or Enter button, accompanied by Back and More Info buttons. Tap any of these keys and they show a backlit glow for two seconds, handy if you're watching movies or TV in a darkened room. You can disable the backlight or, when putting the keyboard away between uses, push a switch to turn it off altogether to save battery power.

Two Hits and One Miss

We've already confessed our liking for the Media Center interface's simple up/down/right/left/back navigation paths, and the Remote Keyboard's right-hand compass and buttons make the experience perfectly pleasant. The keyboard is a first-class replacement for the MCE remote, as well as a capable choice for text entry. For everything you can do within the Media Center environment, including instant messaging, it's a success.

Unfortunately, as a substitute for a mouse, it's miserable. Once you leave Media Center for the Windows XP desktop, you must push an IBM-ThinkPad-style pointing stick or miniature joystick to move the cursor with your right hand, while pressing left- and right-click buttons with your left.

Unlike many laptop users, we're generally content with a pointing stick instead of a touchpad, but the Remote Keyboard's is a stiff, erratic example: You must push firmly downward as well as in the desired direction to move the cursor, which stays stuck in place, then streaks off and overshoots the target -- it almost always moves either too slowly or too quickly, rarely offering a happy medium feel or feedback. We don't usually close applications with Alt-F4, but after repeatedly taking a wobbly 10 or 15 seconds to hit the close box at a window's top right, we were glad the key combination came to mind.

Even after several hours' practice, the joystick frustrated us so often that we must flunk the Remote Keyboard as a mouse substitute -- just as emphatically as we praise it as a remote-control and conventional-keyboard replacement. If it cost $75, we'd say two out of three isn't bad, but at $105 the scales tip against it.

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