Just thought I’d let everyone know that my last article on building my mini home theater PC has been featured on the “In The News” section of Adesso’s website. I know you’re probably not all that stoked – but I am… seeing as I love it when I get featured on other sites to begin with – to know that I caught the eye of a company who’s product I use on an every day basis is even cooler.

I bought Adesso’s Wireless USB Mini Keyboard a few weeks ago from Newegg ($51 at the time of this article) when I was going to turn an old computer into a home theater computer. In the end I ended up buying a new case, power supply, dvd burner, RAM, processor, video card, and hard drive. The only thing that stayed from the old project to the new one was my keyboard that I had fallen in love with. It’s about the size of a sheet of paper and about a half-inch thick. It’s a perfect companion to any affordable home theater setup. Light, easy to use, and so freakin simple to set up (plug in the usb stick and start using it…)

I’ve tried gaming with it a bit and to no surprise it wasn’t the best experience in the world. No worse than trying to game with a laptop, though. Remedy? Get yourself a wireless mouse in addition. Trust me – having the trackpad on it may seem like a nuisance but it’s a blessing…pick it up, walk to the sofa, plop down, and start surfing (or watching or listening or whatever you plan on using your HTPC for). It holds it’s own in simple games like Sim City or Rollercoaster Tycoon, but for something that requires lightning-fast precision…nothing beats an actual mouse. The thing is as light as a feather though. It weighs about as much as a DVD case with a DVD in it…much lighter than some wireless keyboards I’ve used.

The cons would be that the advertised-on-the-box range is 100 feet and the real-world range is more or less 30-35 feet. Still though…that’s really freakin far. My house isn’t that big… I’m pretty sure I addressed that issue in my last post. Other than that sometimes my finger makes its way to the scroll area of the trackpad and will start zooming in, scrolling down, whatever… it surprises me for a second and then I realize what’s happened…and continue about my business. After it’s been idle for a while it’ll go to sleep but a few quick taps on the shift key will wake it up abruptly.

Some things I’d love to see but would obviously drive the price up outside the “affordable” range… When you pick it up, it would have a sensor inside to detect it and wake it up automatically. Also – backlit keys. These would come on when it woke up too. This would of course require a light sensor to perform like my Macbook Pro‘s backlit keyboard. That and two-finger scrolling instead of a scroll-area. I love my Macbook Pro’s trackpad more than anything in the world. Takes some getting used to – but sometimes I move from the laptop to the HTPC and start using two fingers forgetting I’m not using the same trackpad anymore.

Overall I’d give this thing a 9/10 for the price. That being said… I’m really honored to have caught the eye of Adesso and made their front page, even if it is a single small line that reads:

“June 28, 2008 — The Rants and Raves, “The Mini HTPC“”

Since they saw my last post I’m hoping they’ll see this one too. Thanks, Adesso for making an awesome wireless mini keyboard. The few flaws are easily overshadowed by it’s ease of use, cost, and all around great functionality.