Ask anyone that has spilled a drink in a keyboard accidentally what the worst part is and they’ll either tell you “cleaning it up” or “buying a new one”. Fortunately, a new keyboard and mouse may fix.
Logitech may have the equivalent of killing two birds with one stone for that exact problem with the release of a new keyboard and mouse combo that aims to make it less of a hassle to clean your set of keys if the worst happens.
By “worst” we’re talking about spilling water or wine or coffee or chocolate milk or beer. Trust on this one, because when this journo spilled chocolate milk in a keyboard at the age of eight or nine, his dad was not happy.
In fact, after being forced to clean out milk from a keyboard, we can tell you that it’s far easier to just buy a new keyboard. Back then when keyboards were expensive, not so much, but Logitech’s new spill-friendly keyboard appears to have liquid immersion dealt with, as well as price figured, too.
The product in question isn the Logitech MK235 Wireless Keyboard and Mouse combo, and as the name suggests, it’s a cordless keyboard and mouse designed for use with Windows PCs, though we suspect you could use it on a Mac if you constantly forget about the Windows key on the keyboard.
Technology-wise, the hardware inside isn’t super high-end for this peripheral combo, with a keyboard providing up to three years life on two AAA batteries, while the mouse relies on one AA for a battery life of up to one year.
Both offer wireless connectivity through a single USB dongle, and neither are all that high end in terms of what they do: the keyboard doesn’t offer backlighting, while the mouse relies solely on an optical tracking engine and not one of those fancy laser trackers at the bottom.
But what the MK235 keyboard does do is survive encounters with liquid.
Logitech hasn’t told us much about the level of resistance that is being offered, except to say the conditions that the MK235 were tested in were a maximum of 60ml of liquid being spilled, and we suspect that water was used in the testing.
The good news is that provided you don’t drop much out of your glass, the keyboard should be fine, with quick draining of the keyboard dealing with liquids while an anti-fading treatment on the key should handle erosion of the painted letters.
As for whether your keyboard won’t smell afterwards, well, that’s dependent on what you ended up spilling.
If it does become too much for your nose to handle, at least Logitech’s price on the combo isn’t a shocker, with the MK235 Keyboard and Mouse combo fetching an RRP of just under $50.
Availability is now, so if you have found a way to ruin your keyboard recently through spills, you at least know that a potential next purchase has been made with this in mind.
