Dell Pro Compact Silent Keyboard and Mouse (KM555)

It's impossible to argue with the price or the software, but the keyboard's lack of precision can be irritating

- TIM DANTON

Forgive me for sounding like a broken record these past few months as I do Dell’s job for it, but at CES in January it rebranded its entire ecosystem of laptops, PCs and peripherals. Well-established sub-brands such as Latitude, XPS and UltraSharp are on the way out, with Dell Premium for high-end products and Dell Pro the universal label for devices aimed at professionals.

This universality extends to keyboards, as shown by the Dell Pro Compact set here and the Dell Pro Collaboration keyboard opposite. A month after its big rebrand, Dell introduced its Dell Display and Peripheral Management software, which is surprisingly useful from an end user's perspective. It allows you to control all your Dell hardware from one place - updating its firmware, perhaps - and in the example of this keyboard and mouse combo means you can customise shortcuts. (At some point in the future, IT managers should be able to use Dell’s Device Management software to control their assets, but I don’t have a date for when that will happen.)