There’s no power switch on the keyboard either, so the only way to turn it off is to remove its batteries. Being wireless, they rely on battery power as well, but if you want to use rechargeable batteries-two AAs each-you’ll have to provide your own. They’re not so poorly done that you’d need to worry about peeling-we scraped across them with several sharp-edged objects without damaging them-but will they stand up to years of daily wear?įurthermore, while the mouse and keyboard use the 2.4GHz frequency band to communicate with your PC, they’re not Bluetooth, so they don’t establish a Personal Area Network (PAN) that you can connect to other devices. Our first observation might seem like a trivial complaint, but the labels on the keys appear to be appliqués, which makes us wonder about their long-term durability. If you’re willing to accept some compromises, Microsoft has a very good combo package including both with more features than you might expect for $80-and the mouse and keyboard are wireless, to boot.Ĭompromises made here aren’t ill-advised, but we’ll discuss them first because there’s no point in considering the Wireless Desktop 3000 if you find them to be deal-breakers. So you need a new mouse and keyboard, but the economy being what it is, you don’t have a lot of green to spare.

Microsoft digital keyboard 3000