Don’t be distracted by the new assault of media streamers lead by the Boxee Box and Google TV and these new controllers from IOGear plan on capitalizing on the living room PC popularity. Home theater PCs are still big business thanks in part to netops gaining hardware accelerated graphics while dropping in price. With the right software pack — either Windows Media Center or Boxee — combined with a good wireless controller, they can be a great setup. Of course, the better the controller, the more likely the family will accept the setup. That’s where the latest from IOGear comes in.
These two new keyboards hit for less than a $100 with the palm-size GKM571R carrying a $99.99 MSRP and $89.99 for the large GKM581 ‘board. Both operate via a 2.5GHz dongle and have an optial trackball along with full QWERTY keys. The palm size one obviously is a bit more dicreate and perfect for search queues and URL input while it’s full-size counterpart is probably best for emailing, typing and the like. Both will ship later this year.