Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5000

- frys for $100 after $20 MIR
- bluetooth 2.0 so you can use other bluetooth devices with the dongle
- One thing you might be able to do is use the keyboard/mouse with a laptop that has built in bluetooth. That might be kind of neat not having a dongle on the laptop for wireless input. I didn't get to test this though.
- suppose to be up to 60ft range though in my room (probably the worst case scenario as far as 2.4ghz interference goes) it didn't fair much better. At least the positioning of the dongle was less direction dependent.
- keyboard is the exact same dimensions as the mx3000 except a lot heavier and it takes 4XAA instead of 2XAA. The LCD display on the keyboard is a bit gimmicky. It's kind of neat but doesn't add all that much value.
- I compared 3 keyboards all at the same time for lag and data rate (mx3000,mx5000,wired ms natural pro through ps2 port). The increase data rate of BT 2.0 really helped here. If you open notepad and just try and type many letters quickly then hit enter you can see on the mx3000 the enter actually lags behind the key presses. It just can't send the data quick enough. On the mx5000 and MS wired they both kept up about the same. Now this isn't the same as lag. Pressing a key on any of the keyboards almost has that letter showing up immediately. Just on the mx3000 you'll notice performance issues if you type a lot of characters in a short amount of time. This doesn't happen much in a game situation.
- I did notice one kind of annoying thing about the mx5000 keyboard. it seems to go to "sleep" after about 2 sec of inactivity and then on the next key press there is a very slight pause as it wakes up. The mx3000 does NOT show this behavior.
- MX5000 comes with the mx1000 laser BT mouse. It has a non user removable built in rechargeable battery (which I hate. what happens when the batteries wear out in a year?). It also didn't seem to track as smoothly as the mx600 that comes with the mx3000 or my wired mx518 on usb. I tried all 3 mice side by side in counter strike source and slowly panned my view back and forth. mx518 was by far the smoothest, next came the mx600, and in last mx1000. I have no idea if this is caused by the BT or the laser or the wireless (all my laser mice are wireless).
- all the devices do have a dedicated sliding on/off switch

So lets see to sum up: twice the price of mx3000, keyboard sleep issues (but faster data transfer rate), mouse tracks worse, and a bit better range, Yeah back to the store it goes.

Right now I don't think there is a wireless desktop that is as good for gaming as wired. If you want to play competitively then stick to wired. If you are playing casually or single player then the mx3000 is acceptable.