Gigabyte KM6150 review

The Gigabyte KM6150 desktop set is the cheapest keyboard and mouse set we’ve seen, and it shows. The keyboard is thin, lightweight and feels rather cheap. The keys don’t quite seem to all sit at the same heights and with your fingers resting on them they shift about under your digits. They’re angled slightly towards you, and we didn’t mind the keys’ short and sharp action, but our typing caused the whole keyboard to flex a little when we hit keys in the middle of the rows.

The keyboard layout is very standard. All the keys are the size you’d expect, and the Escape and function keys are standard versions, rather than smaller keys present on some models. Above these is a line of small silver shortcut keys, which are a little awkward to press due to being integrated into a plastic ridge that often catches on the side of your finger. There’s a good mix of internet (Home, Back, Forward and Favourites) and media playback, along with email and sleep keys. These all worked fine on our PC, though Favourites only worked in Internet Explorer and not Chrome.

The mouse, though very basic, is a reasonable model. It’s nicely shaped, and feels comfortable to use for long periods. The left and right buttons are excellent, with well-judged feedback and a definite click. The mouse wheel is the only weak point. It’s slender, doesn’t protrude out of the casing by much and tends to make a ratcheting noise when rolled forward. The wheel’s button doesn’t have as positive a click as we’d like, either. The mouse is rated at 800dpi and we had no problems with its accuracy.

At just £16, the KM6150 is a very cheap desktop set, and the mouse is pretty good for the price. We’re less enthusiastic about the keyboard, however, and for only a little more you could have the much better Microsoft Wired Desktop 600.