Recent Gadgetry… Part 1 (Logitech diNovo Mini)
It has been a week now since I first received my main x-mas gift from my wife, the Logitech diNovo Mini, and I have to say that I am still thoroughly impressed with this device. I am not typing at a blazing speed when using this device, but I didn’t expect to when I ordered it. You can clearly see in any picture of the device that it is basically a pimped out, up-scaled, bluetooth thumbpad. The buttons remind me of the htc phone keyboards I have had (not the blue angle though, it had a weird keyboard). The range of the diNovi Mini is very good. My couch is only 15′ away from the computer/tv so I walk about 25′ from the computer and from what my wife was telling me (I was in another room) all signals from the buttons I was pressing were being received. I am loving the dual use touchpad (a switch will change the touchpad to a directional pad), with the led back-lighting indicating which mode you are in (the whole keyboard is lit orange when in touchpad mode and green when in d-pad mode). I have read many posts with negative comments about the cover on the diNovo Mini and I am not really as disappointed over it as other people are. Sure it is kinda “hard to open” (not really, but you do have to use both hands), but in the long run the protectiveness will outweigh having to use both hands to open the cover. I cannot comment on battery live beyond the fact that it is still on its first charge after a week. I have not used the device extensively, only here and there, so I will need to give it a thorough workout and run it dead to know the actual charge life.
I had read several posts about how that this device will not work with an xbox, and I have to say it was really simple to get it working; I basically replaced controller 4 with a usb extension (female end) and plugged the dongle that came with the device to said cable (I then tucked the dongle/usb cable behind the harddrive to have everything hidden). Since the dongle processes the bluetooth signal and interfaces through usb as a HID there was no setup, it just worked. Granted most people on the forums talking about the inability to use this device with an xbox are not like me, buying an xbox, with no games, just to hack the device and use it as a media server and cutting/rewiring within the console, but it can be done.
