Logitech S 530 Mac Cordless Keyboard and Mouse

Reviewed by Wayne LeFevre

Ease of Installation

Installation was a snap. You install a dock into an available USB port, which you then insert the receiver into the dock. The dock looks mainly to be an extension for the USB port so that the receiver will always be on the desk and not have any interference. Place batteries into the mouse and keyboard, press a button on the receiver, press a button on the keyboard and one more on the mouse. It all finds each other and acts great from there on out.

Manufacturer Interaction and Accessibility.

Logitech has a forum section that you can go to for help, but it could use a little help. The biggest issue is Logitech seems to have forgotten to keep their drivers updated.

Instructions

Instructions on installation are provided on CD, along with drivers. There is a getting started pamphlet.

Effectiveness, Ease of use and Recommendation.

I’ve pretty much grouped all of these together for a reason. My old Logitech keyboard that I brought with me from my PC to my Mini was finally giving up the ghost. The keys were starting to stick, and no amount of cleaning would help. If there is nothing worse in this world it’s having to type a lot on a sticky keyboard. After looking around a lot, I finally decided on this S530 combo. I’ve always had good luck with Logitech keyboards and mice. The Apple keyboards seemed a tad on the mushy side, and I can’t stand the old IBM type keyboard that lets out a resounding clack on every keystroke. This keyboard uses a scissor action that gives just the right amount of resistance and feedback before and after every stroke. It’s not loud, but lets you know you actually pressed the button.

The keyboard is actually quite thin - about 3/4 inches with a palm rest. It does come with legs underneath to bring up the rear of the keyboard, but I found them to angle my hands a bit too much. The keyboard comes with buttons on the left and right edges known as media buttons. On the left side you can launch your e-mail client, scroll through documents and your browser, go to your home page and an efficient back button to go back a page. When you pressed the recessed power button, a dialog box pops up asking if you want the machine to sleep, turn off, etc. There is a small battery indicator to let you know if your battery is getting low.

The right side includes multimedia keys. One to bring up iTunes, play, pause, forward, back volume and mute. There is also a button to bring up iPhoto and one for a separate spotlight window. The buttons can be remapped, but more on that later. The function keys go to F15 plus an eject and help key.

The mouse is a laser mouse that is sculpted to fit the right hand. It has a standard 2 button arrangement and scroll wheel. The scroll wheel can also act as a button when pressed, and has a tilt function for scrolling horizontally left and right. Unfortunately, the mapping on the tilt is limited to the horizontal scroll or moving through applications, similar to the Control Tab. There are 3 small buttons on the top of the mouse that control Up and Down volume and Mute. They are a little awkward to use, but work well enough. Two thumb buttons are provided for your standard forward and back controls. The actions of the mouse are precise. There is no jumping around usually associated with the older trackball–less mice that use just the LED. Pixel precise editing is not a problem with this setup.

The mouse also has a battery indicator light. Both the indicators on the mouse and keyboard start to flash when you have approximately 10 days of battery life. The batteries included are standard alkaline, since there is no dock for recharging. One of the advantages of this is even less cables, since you don’t have to power the dock. The batteries are supposed to last up to six months, though I haven’t had the chance to test this. The mouse has an option to work on only one battery, making it lighter and more efficient? Maybe for portability?

If it only stopped there, it would just about be the perfect set–up. For some reason, Logitech doesn’t seem to want to support the Mac, even though it does. It used to have web–cams that were Mac compatible. You can’t seem to find them anymore. They’re new speakers, that look fabulous, aren’t for the Mac’s! (There is a work–around for it, but it takes extra steps and work.) And driver support is just abysmal. Everything seemed to work fine until Apple release 10.4.8, and that broke the Logitech Control Center, converting all extra buttons to nothing but extra space. It was well documented on the Logitech boards, but mum was the word from the company. For some reason, when Apple released the next update, if you un–installed, then re–installed the LCC software, it actually ran and you could set up your keyboard and mouse.

As of now, every once in a while, all of a sudden for no apparent reason, the buttons on the mouse will stop working. If you bring up the LCC, it will not find any devices. Again, all known on Logitech’s own forums. It takes a re–boot to correct everything back to normal.

Otherwise, when everything works, the whole set–up is pure art. Both pieces are great looking, and work exceptionally well. Even though the drivers are flakey, I would highly recommend this combination and would buy it again. But please, Logitech, if you’re listening, please work on your Mac drivers and make more Mac compatible products.