Adesso Wireless SlimTouch Mini

The Adesso Wireless SlimTouch Mini is a mini keyboard ideal for those looking to save desk space and its compact, yet stylish design will attract plenty of attention.

The Wireless SlimTouch Mini utlises laptop style keys, which are compact and sit flatter than the normal desktop keyboard. They produce a tapping sound, rather than the usual distinctive keypad noise. It takes a while to get used to, especially if you've used a standard desktop keyboard for an extended period of time, but once you get into the hang of things, the SlimTouch Mini is fairly enjoyable to operate.

The SlimTouch Mini scraps the numerical pad usually seen on most keypads in order to remain small and thin. Numbers can either be typed at the top row of the QWERTY keys, or using the function button, where they are spread across six lettered keys. In addition to this, the SlimTouch Mini also uses two Windows keys as well as the standard function buttons - such as Home, End, Delete, Print Screen and Pause/Break. Despite its size, users are well covered in terms of functionality.

The keyboard is extremely small, thin and light, making it a distinct advantage if you haven't got much desktop space to work with. It could also be used as a media centre keyboard in a pinch- although in saying this, there are no quick shortcut media keys, so this model is best suited for general home and office computing needs, rather than dedicated multimedia units.

The main issue we had with this keyboard was the amount of time it took us to get used to typing on such a small area. We found ourselves constantly accidentally tapping the mouse pad, which would move the cursor to a separate line. This was extremely frustrating and took us a good day of use to get accustomed to. If you can persist with it, there are benefits but for the less patient amongst us, the SlimTouch Mini may create more headaches than convenience.

The SlimTouch Mini's laptop style finger operated mouse pad includes a scroll pad for browsing convenience. The mouse was responsive for most part, although we did have to adjust the sensitivity on our PC, as its default setting is quite fast. It includes two buttons - one primary left button and a secondary right button, but most of the time we found ourselves simply tapping the pad itself to select functions, instead of using the two buttons.

The Slimtouch Mini runs via a 2.4GHz RF frequency, which connects to your PC by a small USB receiver. The Wireless range was extremely impressive, the keyboard still typing from more than 10 metres away from our PC. The keyboard itself is powered by four AAA alkaline batteries, which are included in the sales package. At this price its quite expensive though.