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Avocent LongView

The $995 LongView Wireless frees the monitor, mouse, speakers and keyboard from most PCs (sorry, it doesn't support Macs) and puts wireless in the middle when it's desirable to have the machine in one spot and its input devices in another.

The vendor promises up to 100 feet of wireless connectivity, making LongView Wireless a candidate for situations ranging from warehouses to networked marquees and kiosks. With such versatility in mind, Avocent has included a tutorial on wireless dos and don'ts in its well-written user manual.

Receivers & Transmitters

The latest addition to Avocent's LongView series of KVM extenders, LongView Wireless builds proprietary compression magic on the relatively speedy Atheros IEEE 802.11a/b/g chipset.

By playing in the 802.11a radio space, LongView Wireless separates itself from the often-saturated world of the b and g spectrum to resist radio interference. 802.11a can reach throughputs of around 30 Mbps, and LongView Wireless will use most of that capacity during high-bandwidth operations, such as playing a DVD in full-screen mode across the airwaves. Casual audio and video output across LongView Wireless will chew up only 10 Mbps.

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