Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Although there are a lot of promising ways to enjoy online content (web browsing, YouTube, Netflix, etc.) on your TV, the best one I've found so far is ... a computer. The Logitech K400 is clearly designed with this setup in mind, giving you full control of a computer in a couch-friendly form factor. Surprisingly, it seems to be one of the few such input devices with a (near) full-size keyboard instead of a tiny thumb-sized one. Obviously, that means it's much larger than a conventional remote control, but it's also much more usable. It looked like exactly what I wanted, and at a reasonable price, too. The K400 features a fairly attractive, clean design (aside from the odd "random lines" artwork on the trackpad). It's much lighter than I expected, which is nice, but it's also not incredibly sturdy. The build quality is fair for the price, I'd say, but doesn't seem likely to withstand a lot of abuse. As long as you don't plan on writing a novel on your TV, the slightly-smaller-than-full-size keys are pretty usable. They aren't backlit, though, which would be especially useful in a dark living room. On a semi-related note, the Caps Lock key doesn't light up, either ... but you don't use that key anyway, right? One very handy feature is the additional left-click button in the upper left corner, which lets you operate the trackpad with both hands or thumbs. It's a lot easier to click or drag with your left hand as you move the cursor with your right hand this way. The trackpad also conveniently offers Mac-style two-finger scrolling. Other nice touches include an on/off switch, and a slot behind the battery door to stow the teeny tiny USB receiver dongle. It also ships with factory-installed AA batteries, which is always appreciated. If you're looking for a decent keyboard for a home theater PC, this one seems hard to beat -- especially for the price! -- About Mac compatibility The keyboard claims to support Windows only, but I suspected this wasn't the full story. Sure enough, when I plugged it into a Mac, the keyboard and trackpad worked automatically -- complete with two-finger scrolling -- on both Snow Leopard and Lion. Even the volume buttons are functional (but not the semi-pointless "home" button, it seems). OS X identifies the trackpad as a mouse, so that's the preference pane where you can configure the sensitivity of the tracking and scrolling gestures. The latter really needs to be dialed down to work well, in my experience. Also, you may want to remap the Windows (Command) and Alt (Option) modifier keys for a more Mac-like layout. The only catch? I can't figure out how to disable tap-to-click on the trackpad. (I'm hoping a software hack will make this possible, and that it's not hard-wired into the device itself.) Unfortunately, Logitech's Control Center software doesn't recognize the device, either. If you can live with that, the keyboard otherwise works just fine with a Mac, despite the official word from Logitech.