Design
Belkin's Flip is one of the more attractive KVM (Keyboard, Video, Mouse) switches on the market. A KVM simply allows multiple computers to use one keyboard, mouse and monitor, switching the three devices between PCs as necessary.
Belkin's offering differs by not being a big grey bland box — instead all that's exposed to the eye is a petite, round, white plastic moulded button with an LED in it. Click the button and the LED changes from green to orange, indicating which machine your keyboard, mouse and monitor are now connected to.
Of course, just a tiny round button isn't big enough to store all the guts of the KVM, and so a bigger unit can be found dangling off the end of this remote. On the main base station can be found two USB ports for your keyboard and mouse, a DVI-D output port, a 3.5mm audio jack and a jack for the AC adapter, which previous versions of the Flip have not required. From this extends two major cables, each with a DVI-D in, USB and 3.5mm cable attached. This essentially means both keyboard and mouse are funnelled down the one USB port, although we didn't notice any negative side effects from this.
Features
The Flip DVI-D allows dual link DVI sources, meaning the Flip is capable of displaying resolutions up to 2,560x1,600, supporting the big 30-inch monitors. While early revisions of the hardware exhibited issues in displaying to the high resolution screens, this has since been resolved, our test unit performing admirably.
The addition of an audio jack also allows you to switch audio sources into the one set of speakers as required, and although it's only limited to stereo it's an excellent advantage.
Performance
Setting up the Flip was easy — plugging both PCs into the device and plugging in the power took less than five minutes, and a simple press of the button switched everything as expected.
There was a difference in operating systems, however — while the monitor would always switch instantly, there would be varying delays in keyboard/mouse operation. OSX would always have instant response, whereas Windows XP would take two seconds to initialise the inputs. Windows Vista, on the other hand, would take anywhere between nine and 27 seconds, for no reason we could discern.
While the price might be a bit out of the league of some, if you just want basic functionality there are other models of Flips available for a lower price. For the rest of us, it could potentially save the cost of a separate monitor, keyboard and mouse, and so long as you're not using Vista, it's definitely worth a look.
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