Ci70 Wireless Desktop Set for Mac

There are two main reasons to buy a new mouse-and-keyboard set: Either you're dissatisfied with the Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse shipped with your iMac or Mac Pro, or you want to pop your laptop up onto an ergonomically efficient stand and type instead on a full-sized external keyboard. If you fit either of those scenarios, Kensington's Ci70 Wireless Desktop Set is a good choice. Unfortunately, before you can get your hands on the Ci70's low-profile keyboard and ambidextrous mouse, you have to deal with Kensington's ludicrously wasteful and sharp-edged packaging. Once you free the products from their plastic prison, you'll discover that the keyboard and mouse are accompanied by four brand-name AA batteries, along with a five-foot USB extension cable that you can plug into the back of your Mac Pro, route up and onto your desk, and then insert into its female end the single USB RF dongle through which the keyboard and mouse communicate with your Mac. When you insert two of the AAs into the keyboard, you'll find a sticker on the battery door that instructs you to go to Kensington.com and download the latest version of the Ci70 Wireless Keyboard Driver, for Mac OS 10.4 or later. If you don't, the keyboard and mouse will work, but not the keyboard's 10 hotkeys. Five of those hotkeys—soft rubber and tiny, but conveniently recessed—sit above the numeric keypad and control the standard media functions: play/pause, next and previous track, and volume up and down. The remaining five—larger and plastic, and with a satisfyingly solid click and key-travel distance—are arrayed above the left half of the keyboard. These icon-festooned keys eject optical media and launch Spotlight, iTunes, and your default Web browser and e-mail app. Nothing spectacular, just clean, functional convenience. The keyboard's keys have a comfortable two millimeters of key-travel distance and a healthy dose of resistance, the edge of the keyboard case doesn't intrude on the travel of the space bar, the function keys are of a decent size, and two foldout feet allow you to adjust the keyboard's angle. In short, the Ci70 feels great to my lumbering digits—a welcome improvement over the squishy Apple Keyboard. Unfortunately, there's an annoying Windows key between the Control and Option keys, but since the keyboard is cross-platform, that can't be helped. It's also worth noting that the Kensington keyboard mushes the function keys into a non-standard single line of keys, rather than the standard groups of four. Although this allows for a more-compact keyboard, it makes it more difficult for touch typists to locate particular function keys.