Logitech DiNovo Laser Review

[ienhz]

Alright I've been using my DiNovo set for about 3 months and I think I can give an unbiased opinon on it. I got the set for free from a friend so I won't be trying to justify a heavy purchase with a biased review. I will split each section into 2 paragraphs -- one for the keyboard and one for the mouse.

Design/Build

Even though the DiNovo does have an extremely high price for a mouse and keyboard, you have to admit it's quite a well-designed and beautiful combo. For the laser version, the colour scheme has been changed to a bluish-silver tint from the original green-looking charcoal colour. The actual keys themselves are quite nice feeling, though not EXACTLY like a laptop. They also feel sort of flimsy, like you can lift the keys out. Every button has a nice tactile feeling when pressed except the media controls which sometimes can be hard to tell if you've even pressed the button or not -- especially with the extremely crappy software (which I'll talk about later). The space bar is also noticeably louder than the other keys. All in all, nothing really bothers me about the keyboard and mediapad.

Now, I've never liked the look of the MX1000 mouse. It's just really big and ugly. The extra function keys aren't really tightly secured and wobble a bit. The scroll wheel is by far the worst I've ever used because to hit MOUSE3 you HAVE to push it directly into the middle which is a bit hard to get used to because, for example, if you push a little to the left, your're now scrolling left. The mouse looks especially huge on the smallish and pretty nice looking charger too.

Usage/Features

It takes some time getting used to the way the keys are spaced and it's not really that comfortable either. I probably wouldn't recommend this set if you do a lot of typing. Oh and the calculator on the mediapad is pretty useful when you're using excel or calculating taxes and shipping prices when you're shopping on the internet. The MediaPad's LCD 's MAIN features on the other hand, are really not very useful. It shows what songs you're playing but if you happen to get a message while playing, it covers your song and you HAVE to clear the screen or else if the song ends, the screen is infinitely stuck at the last song you were playing until you play a different one to clear it. So you'll just select the "never interrupt songs with notifications" option to fix it, right? Wrong. Now you'll have a flashing IM notification icon on the LCD WITH a song progress bar that's stuck until you clear the screen. And if you don't clear the screen before the song ends, you get the same thing as above. Completely unacceptable. The IM notifications themselves are garbage too. They will NOT show up unless you can see the MSN notification poppin up too which defeats the whole purpose of the LCD. If you're playing a fullscreen game like Call of Duty or Cs:Source you will NOT see IM notifications. The MediaPad also flashes blue lights and beeps on notifications if you want but I've turned them off because they're more annoying than useful.

Contrary to the MX1000's design, it actually feels quite nice to use. It feels much better in my hand than the MX700 did and the sidescrolling feature is a welcome addition even though some don't like it. You can now turn off the mouse via a switch on the bottom and it also has a battery indicator on the left side (pictured above) which is pretty useful for knowing when you should charge vs. just turning off the mouse. The mouse also goes to sleep after about 5 seconds of inactivity (NOT changeable) so I also wouldn't recommend this to serious gamers because there is some lag.

For this section, I'll also talk about the USB BT receiver. Logitech has changed the charger/receiver combo and went with a USB receiver. The receiver is very much like a bluetooth dongle and frankly, it's horrid. I had massive lag and bad response with the entire set until I experimented with plugging the receiver into different USB ports and/or places that didn't interfere with the connection. For any prospective buyers I'd recommend plugging it into front USB ports or monitor USB ports (if any) for the best performance.

Software (SetPoint 2.60)

Here's where the whole set completely falls apart. SetPoint has got to be one of the worst "drivers" I've ever seen and had the displeasure of using. The program likes crashing and closing itself without warning at random times. What this does is render every media key on the keyboard useless and you'll have to reopen the program. Also, the rambling about the LCD bugs from the usage section could probably go into software too.

For the mouse, the software is even worse. NONE of the extra keys on the mouse are bindable in games (or at least I couldn't set them to anything in CS). I can't even use the sidekeys to talk in Ventrilo. The "cruise control" buttons on the top and bottom of the scroll wheel are completely useless because they will get "stuck" (not physically) 75% of the time and drag you all the way to the bottom of the page even when you've let go of the key. Therefore they are too unreliable to use. My mouse also periodically freezes and lags for no reason whatsoever.

Conclusion/Battery Life

Battery life for the keyboard and mediapad have been good. 3 months and the battery status still says good. The mouse lasts about a week with 5-7 hr usage per day.

Now I'm going to rate the set as if I had to buy it with my hard earned money. There are just too many bugs and annoyances to like this set. Personally I don't find the whole laptop key thing to be that good and I much prefer my old Microsoft Elite set... heck I'd even use my older MX duo set instead, given the price. I'll admit, the design is fabulous and goes great with my setup though.

I'm giving this set a 7/10.

If money is no object, then you can probably bump that score up to a 7.5/10.

Edited May 13, 2006 by ienhz

[Umbrello]

Nice review, but you mention how the steep the price is for the set yet you don't mention how much it is. :huh:

[ienhz]

Oops. MSRP is $299 CDN but it can be found at TigerDirect.ca for about $190 CDN before taxes and shipping.

[SOOPAH256]

I've been using the diNovo Laser set for a little more than half a year, and have used the older diNovo set (w/ mx900) for another year and a half before that.

I fell in love with the design after Dazzla's first review those many many months ago.

I share most of your opinions of the keyboard set. After switching from the first version, I must say that the mouse upgrade was very nice, but overall, the bluetooth is still quite laggy for my tastes.

I've just been using it for so long, I've gotten used to it. I wish they'd make an RF version like their old optical combos used to have. They virtually never have connection problems nor any lag issues.

Anyway, I personally rarely use the Media Pad. I too find it's functions not too helpful. In fact, I keep it on my night stand across the room, so I can control my music and video functions from my bed. I find that I need to replace the batteries pretty often though. The connection drops out since I rarely use it, so I almost have to wait for it to reconnect every time I use it.

haha, that's my jumble of thoughts. :)

thanks for the review, btw.

[Lazih3nri]

Good review. Going to show this to a family member that's interested in the Dinovo.

I'm guessing with a the lag and all, it's not the greatest for gaming...

[chconline Veteran]

Maybe I should review one... :p

[ienhz]

Good review. Going to show this to a family member that's interested in the Dinovo.

I'm guessing with a the lag and all, it's not the greatest for gaming...

Well any set using Bluetooth isn't going to be ideal for gaming anyways, lol. It isn't too bad if you're just a casual gamer; you probably won't notice it much.

[spacey]

I bought mine a little over a month ago for $220 cdn.

Sad to report that I'm having the faulty space bar issue like many people with dinovo keyboards. It seems it only has one sensor underneath the spacebar and over time it stops detecting key strokes easily.