Buyer's Guide - Entry Level, January 2005

Miscellaneous Components

That takes care of all of the core computer components. We did not bother with including a network or sound card as they are provided by the motherboard. Such luxuries add little to most computers, and so we'll leave them for our more expensive Guides. All that remains is the choice of a keyboard and mouse. This is merely one selection of some decent price/performance offerings, and your personal preference may dictate that you get something else. Wireless and ergonomic/natural keyboards are options some will feel are necessary while others will disagree, but we will skip them as they tend to increase the cost. We continue to stick with Microsoft and Logitech offerings as they usually offer the best in terms of reliability, ease of use, and price.

 

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Keyboard/Mouse Recommendation: Logitech Internet Pro Keyboard and Mouse
Price: $25 shipped

Logitech gets our recommendation here due to the better value, although we reiterate that this is a personal choice. The keyboard includes additional shortcut keys that can be relatively useful, along with a good quality optical mouse. More expensive options always exist, like mice with additional buttons, but they can't beat the price of the Logitech bundle.

 

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Keyboard/Mouse Alternative: Microsoft Basic Keyboard and Optical Mouse
Price: $30 shipped

The Microsoft equivalent costs a little more and offers a little less. The keyboard is a basic model, meaning there are no extra function keys for launching your web browser, email applications, etc. There are a few small benefits to the Microsoft bundle, though. One is that the keyboard is slightly smaller due to the lack of the multimedia keys, and the other is that Windows XP does a great job of enabling nearly all of the keyboard and mouse functionality without the need for additional drivers. (We aren't too fond of drivers that leave small icons in our system tray - it's a pet peeve.)

For a few dollars more, you could also get the Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard bundle, but we aren't too keen on their modification of the function keys. They have an "F Lock" key that must be pressed every time you power on your computer, or else the keys will default to such common Windows commands as "Open", "New", "Copy", "Paste", etc. It's a small thing, but we still question the sanity of changing the default operation of the function keys.