Most of us, no matter what we do, have access to two computers these days, one at the workplace and the other at home, be it a desktop or a laptop. Though the laptop is a great device to have and work on, but the cramped keyboard, smallish display screen and touch-pad could be very tiring and least fun specially when working for long hours.
What fun it would be if we could use the PC?s big monitor, keyboard and mouse to work on the laptop or work on both the computers (a PC and a laptop) at the same time without having to use two sets of display monitors, keyboards and mouse!
Belkin?s ?Flip Wireless KVM Switch? is designed to do just that! KVM Switch (Keyboard, Video and Mouse Switch) as the name suggests, enables you to operate two or more computers with only one set of keyboard, monitor and mouse.
Belkin?s Flip KVM Switch is a ?flat-bell? shaped device in white and gray colour. There are two USB ports and one each of VGA and audio-out sockets on the wider side of the bell to connect your main USB mouse and keyboard, the monitor and the speakers system. On the narrow side of the device, there are two sets of long cables to be connected to the VGA-out, audio-out and USB port of your two computers. There also is a disk shaped remote-pad to switch between computers.
Once the Flip is connected and the computers powered-on, you will see the desktop of your first computer on the display. You can access this computer like you normally do. To access the other computer, just tap the remote-pad once and the desktop of your second computer or laptop will come on the display monitor. Now you can use your big monitor, full-sized keyboard and mouse and speakers for both your computer. It?s the simplest way to simultaneously run and share two computers. This self-powered KVM switch features an unique USB sniffing technology for USB mouse and keyboard emulation to ensure smooth operation and a two color LED (orange and green) to indicates which computer Flip is accessing.
Setting-up Flip is no big deal; I made all the connections in three minutes flat. Some of you can do it even faster- following the written instructions in the user guide, but please don?t rush and double check the connections! I connected my 22-inch LCD monitor, wireless keyboard/mouse combo and the 2:1 speakers system to my two PCs via Flip and and I could logon on both my PCs.
While I keyed-in this piece on one computer using MS Word, I did some downloading from the net on the other machine. Later I burned a couple of DVDs of my music collection and photographs. I flipped between two computers umpteenth of times during this session without any hitch. At the time of flipping between computers the screen goes blank only for a brief moment before the other desktop appears but the keyboard and mouse takes a little longer to switch over (an irritant).
As I used a wireless keyboard/mouse combo using only one USB port of the Flip, the other USB port was spare; I used it to connect my pen-drive instead.
At an MRP of Rs 3,467, it?s a geek?s delight!
