Cherry Marlin M85-25810 Desktop

For anyone who is fed up with constantly tugging their mouse or keyboard cable for more slack, a wireless desktop set is usually the answer.

Such a thing can set you back anywhere between £20 and £90 so, at around £55, Cherry’s Marlin represents roughly the middle of the price range.

The slim, metallic-looking keyboard is not unpleasant to look at, though up close it actually turns out to be a bit more plasticky than you might at first imagine. Its shallow, laptop-style keys don’t have much spring to them and this might not be to everyone’s taste.

The accompanying five-button mouse is small but very comfortable to use. It uses a laser sensor with high-precision capabilities, but it’s worth noting that the curved design means it’s for right-handers only.

Set-up was extremely easy: plug the small USB wireless receiver into your PC and pop batteries into the mouse and keyboard. The technology is supposed to make it less prone to interference but we found that we still occasionally lost the ability to type or control the cursor, even though our testing environment was relatively free of wireless pollution.