SMK-Link VP4750 Bluetooth Touchpad Remote

This product does not work with any Apple Mac computers running Leopard (10.5) or Snow Leopard (10.6). SMK (the manufacturer) are fully aware of the problem - which they admitted to me via e-mail - however, knowing it does not work and admitting such, they then abandon their customer. So, despite their nefarious advertised claims that this product is Apple compatible, the product proves these claims to be completely fallacious.

It has now been 3 months since I raised the matter with them, but despite their claims (via e-mail) to me that they were going to organise a fix for the remote they have done nothing. SMK, a company big on claims, yet infinitesimal on performance.

Do not get ripped off. You will waste a lot of time trying to get them to replace it, and in the end all they will have done is to have taken your money and be enjoying spending your hard earned cash on a beach in Rio or the Bahamas - while you are left with a useless piece of junk. So, buyer beware, SMK have outed themselves as a dishonourable business.

From a hardware perspective, this is a pretty good device.
-Very responsive capacitive touchpad. Much more responsive than a few wireless keyboard touchpads I've tried, especially with tap clicking.
-Nice raised right edge of the touchpad for easy scrolling.
-Idle power-off extends battery life.

The biggest problem of this device in my view is that it doesn't have any software for customization. I'm sure this was intended as a positive, and it certainly can be viewed that way. There are about half a dozen control changes you can set by pressing buttons in a certain order as explained in the advanced setup guide. For example, the touchpad's tap-to-click function is disabled by default, but you can enter advanced setup mode to enable it by holding down some specific buttons while you turn it on and then clicking another button (visit the smklink website for full details.) They probably chose this implementation so you can move the device from one computer to another, without setup or compatibility worries, and always have it perform with the same internally-saved settings. That's all well and good if you're just going to use this with powerpoint or keynote, but if you wanted to use this for, say, a media center remote you won't get much out of the left/right arrow key buttons, or the "b" / "." buttons.

Theoretically, if you wanted to use this on a media center pc and didn't need use of a keyboard, you could set the key assignments this controller uses, left arrow, right arrow, and "b" (or ".") to be hotkeys for a program launch, or another keystoke that might be useful to you, but this would require use of a third-party application like keyboard remapper.

The one fault I found with the hardware is the device is too small and light to have a nice balance in your hand when you're trying to use the click trigger. You have to grip it in a certain way, very tightly, so that the force exerted doesn't displace the device. This is not a problem on the larger and heavier wiimote click trigger. Now that I've enabled tap-to-click on the touchpad, I just don't use the click trigger (left-clcik by default.)

Also it should be noted that this doesn't come with a bluetooth receiver. If your computer doesn't have internal bluetooth, you'll have to get an adapter. You can find them for as little as two dollars shipped.

Even though this device has shortcomings, it should be noted that if you want a handheld touchpad pointing device, this is currently your only option.

As I write this review, amazon's price is lowest by a significant margin. If you think this device is right for you, you may as well buy it here, and just return it if it doesn't work out!

› Go to Amazon.com to see both reviews  2.5 out of 5 stars