Response from: Hassan    (09/27/07 2:21pm)

I just purchased this keyboard a week ago because I could get it heavily discounted. At 40 bucks it was a great deal. It looks great and feels fine...at a desk. But as soon as I back away to my couch (the only reason I got Bluetooth) I notice lag immediately. I should also note that my couch is within 12 ft of the pc tower. In addition to lag which becomes very annoying in gaming and makes detailed design work impossible, the thin keyboard and lefty-friendly mouse make it an absolute pain to use. One annoying bit I found was the status lights on the keyboard and mouse. They are shaped like batteries and on the box it says "Status Indicator" or somethin which makes me think "battery life?", but they only light up to show you that the device is connecting.
If you just wanna remove the clutter of wires (while sacrificing some precision), and create a Bluetooth hub then I wouldn't reccommend against this at it's normal price. If you you can get it at the same price as I did, I reccommend it.

However, if you are a gamer, designer, and/or someone who wants to integrate their pc into their home theater (or otherwise use the keyboard/mouse from a distance), reconsider your purchase as the mouse aren't ergonomic, and the more distance you add the more lag you gain.

I'm exchanging it for either a Logitech MX Revolution, Trackman.

Response from: Binky    (08/13/08 5:15am)

I just bought this Rocketfish keyboard & mouse on eBay, and so far I quite like them both. I've got a Dell Vostro 1700 notebook (with Vista Home Basic - originally planned to nuke it and install XP but so far it's been behaving itself) and I just put a new Dell 360 Bluetooth card in it, and the Rocketfish items connect quickly, easily, and permanently - no problems after shutting down or coming out of sleep mode. And no lag whatsoever. Of course, I'm using them within a few feet of my notebook. I have no reason or desire to put the screen any futher away. OK hang on, here's a live test... I'm typing this as I walk to about 50 feet away... OK I'm back and expected to find most of it missing - but not a letter is! And I just took the mouse to the next room and moved it across the far wall, came back and the cursor was indeed at the right edge of the screen. OK NOW I'm impressed! Might have something to do with having a really good Bluetooth card though; I haven't tried the USB one that came with the set. I think I'll plug that into my XP machine and play with file transfers & stuff.

By the way Hassan, the battery-shaped LEDs are indeed battery level indicators - they're red when the batteries run low. They also flash red/green to indicate pairing mode when you're linking them to your PC. That's right in the User Guide, on page 7, under "Keyboard and mouse status LED". But of course why bother to find yourself an answer when you can spend even more time going to somebody's website to whine about being annoyed by your own (incorrect) assumptions, eh genius?

I replaced a Logitech MX 1000 wireless Laser Mouse and a decent USB keyboard with this set, and the only thing I miss is the MX's thumb buttons, which I use as "back" and "forward" for web pages and subdirectories (file folders). So maybe I'll use the MX when I'm deskbound and put the "Rocket rat" in my notebook case for when I escape the office.

According to the reviews I've read, this is the most reliable Bluetooth keyboard, and so far it's been perfect for me too. (And the "thin keyboard" is not "an absolute pain to use" - it's thinner than a standard keyboard but thicker than a notebook keyboard, and has a normal full-size keyboard layout and really good keypress response despite the shorter travel.)

I'd recommend this keyboard to anyone looking for a Bluetooth keyboard, and the mouse isn't bad either - although you can get this set cheap enough to get it just for the keyboard and then get yourself your favourite mouse as well. Oh yeah, and it comes with a USB Bluetooth dongle that sticks out just under 1.5" and adds all that Bluetoothy goodness to your computer. Or you can use it with your notebook's own Bluetooth if it already has it.