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KVM stands for Keyboard, Video and Mouse and is a device that shares a single keyboard, display and mouse between two or more machines. Although the connectivity varies and even though USB and Audio are also available on some models, we still tend to lump them under the same “KVM” category.

I've been using KVMs for years and love them, despite the occasional grief I've had. Thankfully, they are now considerably cheaper and considerably better. When working from home (no longer!), testing God knows how many products, it was hard to find the room for all the boxes, let alone multiple displays! Frankly, without KVMs I wouldn't be writing this right now – and not just because I'm plugged in to one as we speak.

If you can't imagine why you'd need a KVM, then you probably don't need one. But to the rest of you, you're probably wondering why you've never though of getting one before.

Belkin makes a lot of top quality cables, so it makes sense that it would make some pretty good KVMs. Today, I'm looking at two different models, at completely different ends of the price spectrum.

At £23.45, you can't expect to find anything much cheaper than this KVM – if you can, I'd probably steer clear. The main bulk of the unit is tiny and as there are no buttons on the device - it could quite happily live unobtrusively down the back of your desk. This particular model supports one D-SUB device, a PS/2 keyboard, PS/2 mouse, audio and microphone jack.

One cost that is often not thought about when purchasing a KVM, is the cables as they are seldom included. In this particular model, the cables are integrated into the unit itself, and are therefore naturally included. The cables are thick and well shielded. Supporting a resolution of up 2,048 x 1,536 – this is about as much as you'll realistically need. It doesn't even require a power supply to work as it gets its power from the PS/2 ports.

Switching between devices is as easy as double tapping scroll lock and pressing an arrow key, or number of the designated PC. It would be nice to have had an over-riding physical button for this, as at one point one of the PCs I used crashed and I couldn't switch displays until it was reset. Still, this is a minor annoyance.

This KVM will emulate the keyboard and mouse, so that if a PC is booting up while it is not selected on the KVM, it won't be inoperable when you finally do try and use it. Equally, when you move away from one machine, as far as the operating system is concerned, nothing has changed.

Verdict

This really was a plug and play experience and it worked flawlessly with both Linux and Windows systems. There is nothing bad I can really say about it - if you need to share a monitor, keyboard and mouse between machines this is seriously worth considering and incredibly good value for money.

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