Microsoft All-In-One Media Keyboard w/ Built-In Touchpad

The market targeting those users attaching a PC to a TV has remained niche... and somehow has even shrunk from peak. At the same time, the target design requires accounting for a number of compromises. Both factors have likely resulted in limiting the number of innovative designs out there, since big companies (Logitech, Microsoft, etc.) can't be bothered and the small fry companies can't last enough to justify getting their (likely) patented snapped up and put on offer by one of the bigs.

I've owned a number of different models. I've settled on my K400r. Terrible little trackpad, but decent enough keyboard for limited use with battery life for months. As a bonus it works in the Logitech unifying receiver ecosystem. The media buttons are actually a constant source of frustration since in handling you're likely to set one off unintentionally (without a lot of feedback from the button that you've done something). Of the multitude of other designs I have kept around, Lenovo's mini-keyboard with trackball was great for blending in with other remotes and providing decent use as a cursor control... but that chiclet keyboard wasn't exactly Blackberry-level easy.

Perhaps the best compromise design I've seen are those which attempt to mimic a laptop style keyboard. Lenovo makes one with a TrackPoint nub for controlling the mouse, an interface I've used in the past so likely to work solidly enough for basic cursor control. Of course, best in my estimation gives a slightly higher priority to keyboarding. Most of my media PC usage involves some media management (searching or renaming files) with light navigation (going to a repository for content).

Good luck!
Jon

Wish MS made one with backlighting. There hasn't been a decent alternative since the Logitech K830 was discontinued.

I owned this keyboard for quite a while, I wish I would have listened to the reviews before buying it the first time. Worst microsoft product i've ever bought! Never would have imagine microsoft would build something of this type of quality resembling some chinese knock o. This keyboard would randomnly stopped working, key would get stuck easily and it would not response if any key was pressed, only guess is the internal card cant process many pressed keys at the same time, after almost 2 years of having the keyboard not working from time to time I decided to get rid of my missery and broke the thing into piece. I lasted almost 2 years trying to use this product with hit and miss from time to time, only reason I could stand using it was because i only used it for the tv and that was only when using the browser as my tv doesnt allow fluid mouse interactions I can only imagine the frustration someone trying to use this keyboard on a daliy basic with a pc. Better go with the similar logitech option for multimedia keyboard