Compact, affordable, good enough

On 7/12/2007, I received the Trendware TK-409K KVM Switch. I bought it at http://www.tigerdirect.com/ because I had a gift certificate there, not because it was the best price. I paid $54.99 + tax + shipping.

The KVM is very compact. The blue, fake metal plastic is attractive. The buttons are on top and easily accessible with lights to indicate which PC is active.

It comes with 4 cables where one side is a VGA plug which goes into the KVM and the other side splits into a VGA plug and a USB plug to go into the computer. It also comes with 4 cables that have both microphone and speaker (audio) mini-plugs on both sides. There is no power cord; it takes power from the USB cables (presumably). There are no DVI plugs (the successor to VGA plugs for high-end monitors); DVI is not supported.

The KVM supports USB keyboards and mice only. The switch works by removing the USB devices from the old PC and putting them on the new PC. So, when you switch, it takes a few seconds for the new PC to spot the USB devices and then, if you are on Windows, you hear the "boing-boing" sound of new devices being added. It's not instant gratification; you have to wait 2-5 seconds while your mouse and keyboard are dead. It'd be nicer if the switch kept all the USB devices connected so it could be instantly on when you switch. It's not that big a deal to me but I can imagine others being very annoyed.

Like many KVMs, the plugs for the various PCs are around all 4 edges. This is somewhat inconvenient because you have cables coming out in every direction. Your actual keyboard, mouse, microphone and speakers plug into the front; the cables for PC1 and PC2 plug into the back; PC3 is on the left; and, PC4 is on the right. You have to be artful about managing your cables.

I do something unusual. I have an old, non-USB computer that has PS/2 mouse and keyboard. I hook the PC2 video plug up to it and just leave the USB plug unplugged. By doing this, I can see the video on the KVM when I switch to PC2, even though I use an old keyboard and mouse that are hooked up to the computer directly, not to the KVM. (I only care about sharing the monitor on this one, not the keyboard and mouse.) It works; the KVM is smart enough to pull power from the other PCs hooked up to the KVM, not just the one that is active. I probably do have to have at least one other USB computer running for it to draw power from though I haven't tried unplugging to find out.

Although this KVM claims to support Mac, I don't have a Mac so I can't verify that.

Overall, this KVM is compact, affordable, supports USB and supports both microphone/speaker switching. A good deal.