Wired vs. wireless mouse and keyboard?

For mouse, not really. Even many "pro gamers" use wireless mice these days (not through bluetooth, though). Can't imagine it would matter for documents and spreadsheets.

For keyboard, there's also no explicit problem but the issue is that it doesn't make as much sense unless it's a keyboard you move around (like you take to the office and also bring back home every day). Otherwise, unlike a mouse it will need to be recharged fairly often, and if you already have a wire near your desk to charge your keyboard... why not just used it wired at that point?

Latency is a lie that 99% tell themselves is the reason they aren't better at their games, when it might barely affect 1% of people. That said, here is RTings's mouse latency article and results: https://www.rtings.com/mouse/tests/control/latency

A mouse with rechargeable(via usb) battery and a wired keyboard is how my current setup works.

As long as you don’t use bluetooth, and use the 2.4GHz dongle, the latency should be effectively barely worse(As in it can probably be measured but not perceived) than wired. Whether you want to use AA batteries or a rechargeable internal battery is up to you, though. AA batteries means that there is no battery to worry about getting kaput, but rechargable batteries are infinitely more convenient, though.

Keyboard is usually heavy and bulky so it being wireless has no real benefit unless you move around or want to switch devices.

I have a keycron keyboard and the logi mx 4. My setup at home is a little odd (I have a lap desk and a chair), but point is both can be wired or wireless (and both do Bluetooth and WiFi for wireless).

So I guess my point is depending on what you can spend, why choose? You can get a mechanical keyboard and a nice mouse these days that does all 3 and then just see for yourself.

That being said my main take away on wireless is it can be frustrating if you’re using Bluetooth and get weird “jumps” of connectivity failing and then reconnecting, which yeah would be bad for most anything serious. That said though I played lots and lots of Dota on various keyboards and I promise you wireless was rarely the problem (and when it was it was glaringly obvious like oh shit the keyboard lost charge)

This is somewhat of an arbitrary factor, but I will say that wireless interference/connectivity issues are a thing for me. My bluetooth Keychron keyboard in particular faces somewhat frequent interference that delays and/or prevents key presses from registering. For light office uses, it's not too noticeable. But if I'm playing a WASD game or coding, it can be a dealbreaker. In those situations, I've learned to plug in the keyboard, which solves the problem. Still, it can be pretty annoying sometimes.

That being said, I have two computers, two wireless keyboards, and two wireless mice on my desk. And the Keychron keyboard switches pairing between the two computers. So that may be contributing to interference. And there may be a specific conflict between my devices.

I've used a wireless mouse for probably at least a decade at this point if not more, and I do remember far enough back that it was a concern but by the time I switched it was not a big concern anymore it seemed. I've had basically no issues with a wireless mouse in any games I've played or any other scenarios.

I have a friend who only more recently switched off a wired mouse to wireless, like in the last 5 years, and he was happy to be rid of the wires and mentioned no issues with the wireless mouse in this time, and he also plays plenty of games.

The differences between the mouse he had and the mouse I was using is that I used a mouse with double A batteries and I'd use rechargeable ones, and my batteries lasted quite a while, on the order of at least a month or longer, and he bought a mouse that had a built in rechargeable battery and required plugging it in to charge, so he found the mouse not to be usable in that interim but he could get a usable enough charge in 5-10 minutes or so, but even at full charge I'm pretty sure his mouse didn't last near as long as mine. I don't know what mouse he was using, I had a G602 originally but I broke it somehow and replaced it with a G305. I also have an M720. Those are all Logitech models. Worth noting that the M720 is a hybrid where it can work with a 2.4ghz usb receiver but also does Bluetooth, and the other models were purely using 2.4ghz usb receivers and I consider the 2.4ghz receiver to be superior. In my experience however, where I placed the USB receiver did seem to impact the performance of the mouse, but my memory is kind of hazy on this. I try to avoid putting the receiver on the back of my desktop PC where there is the most obstructions as it did seem to produce intermittent issues there but that could be a thing of the past or just a coincidence or something too.

I'm guessing I'm probably the outlier on preferring a AA battery, the mouse is heavier which doesn't impact me any but I guess others prefer lighter mice and AA battery management may be more of an inconvenience to some.

As for keyboards, I just don't move my keyboard around much so I generally haven't been bothered enough to need a wireless keyboard. There have been occasions where the wire annoyed me but it's just much rarer where I need to move the keyboard to even notice the wire limiting it or getting in the way. If the prices were equivalent I'd probably do a wireless keyboard just for the sake of convenience in certain occasions, but since wireless keyboards typically cost more I just haven't felt like spending more to buy one. From what I gather, these days it also seems wireless keyboard performance wouldn't be an issue, so that wouldn't be a concern for me.

There’s no drawback with wireless mice. Majority of competitive players play with them. The ones who still use a wired mice do so out of habit. There’s basically no input or sensor lag. Keyboard side of things is a different story, but for your purposes, it makes no difference either. You will not notice any difference from their wired equivalents, apart from the price. Rtings is a great resource if you want to check what’s available for either peripheral.

I suck at games so much that latency of even just normal wireless mouse (non-gaming) is of no concern. I used Logitech Marathon mouse (M705) for arpund 4 to 5 years. I changed batteries ONCE. I dropped the mouse only because it started double-clicking and I couldn't find the switches I bought years ago so I couldn't fix the mouse.

Now I use Logitech MX Anywhere 3 which is kinda small. It can use Logitech Unifying dongle or connect up to three devices using Bluetooth. It is very handy mouse. It has built-in li-ion battery and charges via USB-C with port in the standard position (unlike Apple mouse). It is kinda small though.

I would consider MX Master 3S or 4.

But there are like a mjllion mice out there to choose from and I reckon majority of them will be great for your use.

For keyboard - I would look into one that can connect via BT to at leas two devices (switching between them once they are both paired). It's just pure convinience.

I use mechanical Cherry MX Red keyboard "made in China for local seller". It has some basic QA done and was cheap at 50-60€ for 100% and also RGB lit and localised keyboard. I also got aluminium 60% Cherrry Red low profile fully RGB lit with wired and 3 BT device wireless connectivity in sale for 15€ (yes, fifteen) - the besf buy in my life. I got two. This is where the convinience comes from - I use it with desktop and Steam Deck and have it paired to my phone as well. And I use it wired if sombody comes to me with their desktop for debugging. The best keyboard I ever had. Also made in China for local reseller (out of business now). Original price was probably around 100€.

For mice, it doesn't really make a difference as far as my use is concerned. I perceive zero difference between the wired pointing device on my work setup and wireless (RF dongle) one I use on the gaming machine. Battery life can be decent too; my gaming mouse gets several months out of a single rechargeable Eneloop Pro AA and it has never died on me amidst a session.

For keyboards, latency generally isn't an issue, but outside of Apple Bluetooth keyboards the problem I've run into is wakeup time. Unlike mice which can for some reason go between idle and using basically no power to active at imperceptible speeds, keyboards are generally much more groggy and take 1-3 seconds to come out of sleep. As noted Apple BT boards somehow work around this and have crazy battery life to boot, but I have yet to see this in the sorts of keyboards I buy (usually mechanical MX-style or topre boards). This isn't a showstopper exactly, but when you're used to being able to e.g. unleash a rapidfire-typed password to unlock your machine it's annoying. Some wireless boards also have a weirdly short sleep timer which can exacerbate this.

I settled on vertical wireless mice and wired keyboards a long time ago. Since I don't move my keyboards around much, there wasn't a reason to go wireless with them.

I have gotten spoiled using mechanical keys, and any time I have to use a mushy keyboard it stands out as an instant irritation. Using a wired mouse is also off-putting, from the extra drag of the wire.

Use what feels comfortable for you.

Wired keyboard, wireless mouse.

The keyboard doesn't move so there's no downside to it being wired and I can type fast enough to case problems for wireless keyboards (e.g. lol -> llo transcribing).

The mouse does move and the wire is a hindrance for that. In addition it tends to move continuously rather than discrete steps which reduces the penalty for lag.

I`m a bit too late to comment, but for me what irks me is that wireless mouse/keyboard need separate receiver. And each company has unique receiver, and sometime different model of mouse/keyboard even from the same company require unique receivers which keeps USB ports occupied everytime.

Apart from that I did not feel/did not find any difference between wireless/wired.
Yes, if you have a lot of electronics or wires hanging out from you pc/laptop wireless connection can hiccup sometime, but quite often its easy to resolve.

I switched from wired keyboard (Cherry MX 10.0N) to wireless (Keychron K5 Max). It's kinda nice to have more space on the desk not taken up by wires. I do move my keyboard back and forth on the desk a lot depending on what I am doing, and that would often mean the wire getting bunched up on the desk. The charging is infrequent and fast enough that it really doesn't bother me, so I don't otherwise ever use it in wired mode. It 2.4Ghz wireless, so latency should be minimal. I don't notice any latency, but I honestly doubt I have have even if it was bluetooth wireless.

I know this is lame, but I use a Logitech K380 bluetooth keyboard and a Logitech K720 bluetooth mouse. I love the form factor, but the one thing that sucks about this setup is you can't get into the BIOS with it. The bluetooth doesn't connect until you're in the OS. Otherwise, no regrets. There isn't any lag when I play games as far as I can tell so other than having to hook up a USB keyboard if I need to get in the bios, no complaints.

both my keyboard and mouse are wired, but i use a trackball which of course doesn't need to move around -- for the cad work and documents i mainly do i much prefer it to a regular mouse!

My desk is all wired. I don't wanna charge or swap batteries. Even my headset for work is my normal headset (Sony monitor headphones) and a wired Antlion mic into a cheap USB DAC after the pricy headset I got from work started failing.

I have experimented with wireless and even ran a mouse fir a while but kept dropping inputs from the Logitech Universal Receiver. Now it's a trackball without a wireless option.

I like wired because it's simple and more reliable, not that wireless is particularly complex and unreliable.

I have quite a bit of RSI issues and I found the Logitech M720 to be good. It runs forever (months) on a single AA battery. It's bluetooth, so no dongle to lose or catch on things. It supports up to three devices with a switch on the side, which is helpful when going between my work and personal laptops.

After a couple of years, the left click starts spuriously double clicking. Supposedly you can disassemble and fix them, but they are pretty cheap and I rarely can have downtime, so I have a little graveyard of them.

I don't really game seriously, but it's been fine for Control, Horizon Zero Dawn, Factorio, and Minecraft (all on easy mode).

In my experience, if you're buying cheap peripherals, you'll want wired; the wireless ones can have lag issues. If you're willing to spring for something more expensive (e.g., mice and keyboards aimed at gamers), wireless works fine these days. I like the ones that pair through a USB dongle.

I used wired peripherals at my desk. However, my computer is also hooked up to my TV so I can play video games on the couch, and I strongly prefer a wireless keyboard and mouse for that. I also like to use a very pared down keyboard (no numpad, etc.) so I can use it on a small lap desk and still have plenty of mousing room.

Both my wireless mouse and my wireless keyboard can still be used while they're plugged into USB C. They don't run their batteries down quickly, but when they do, it's almost always while I'm in the middle of something, so it's really nice that I can keep using them while they recharge. I definitely recommend looking for this feature if you're shopping for wireless peripherals.

I've used a few different wireless mice and keyboards and have had no responsiveness issues for productivity / non-competitive gaming even with the cheap Logitech ones my workplace hands out. Recharging is also infrequent enough to be a non-issue (once every few months, if that).

A couple of points to bear in mind for your setup though:

• Multiple wireless USB dongles can interfere with each other if plugged in too close.
• Using USB3 ports for dongles can apparently also cause issues, although I've never had this problem myself.

depends on your OS, but as a MacOS user, I use a Magic Trackpad 2 with a Keychron V5 96% w/ RGB. The Keychron is great and uses Via, so you can easily map different layers and all that (for instance, I remotely control my Hue lights, Kodi, etc, via curl scripts by using a modifier on a second level with remapped F keys)

The trackpad is great with MacOS and is okay with Windows and Linux these days, but its best with MacOS. It took me about three days to get used to it, but now I can't imagine anything else. The gestures are especially handy -- e.g. in firefox, three fingers right restores tabs, three fingers left closes a tab, two fingers left and right go forward and back pages.

Back to the keyboard, I also run MDA keycaps, which is very similar to the classic SA, but lower profile so they don't rock at all, which is a really annoying characteristic of higher profile keys. The SA keycap is a copy of the IBM Selectric, which is still my favorite thing to type on. For the switches, I usually go with silent reds, but the nice thing about this keyboard is that you can quickly swap out the switch --- so if you game, you can have blues for WASD etc. For programming it, you can either use the app or just the website via chrome -- https://www.usevia.app. total breeze.

My keyboard is wired and the trackpad can be wireless, but I have it wired since I have a KVM.

The keyboard is such an integral part of a computer that I want it to be wired. I want to be 100% sure that it works when I connect it to a booting computer to get into the bios. I don't want to fiddle around with dongles or bluetooth connections at that point.

Mouse though, always wireless. The wire just gets in the way.

Was it ever a factor? Absolutely, though as mentioned by others it was usually overblown and used as an excuse for losing in competitive games.

Is it now? No, it has not been a concern for many years as long as you get a good product (usually gaming branded) with proven low latency.

I still personally think that unless you have a specific need for the devices to be wireless, like maybe traveling with a laptop, it isn't something people should do. Mice and keyboards simply don't need to be using batteries, full stop. IMO it is wasteful and/or asking for a device to fail early. I also feel the same about wireless headphones/earbuds.

I've been using a Logitech G305 for my mouse. It has some dongle so it's not on Bluetooth and it's pretty responsive and it's cheap. It uses a single AA battery that lasts months. I'll never go back to wired, screw that.

As for the keyboard... I do need an upgrade but I find the wire to be such a mild inconvenience that I havent bothered looking at wireless options.

One of the reasons I use wired, mechanical keyboards and mice is repairability and longevity. Keyswitches will eventually wear out (though it takes many years), and being able to swap in a new switch in a few minutes is way cheaper than buying new.

Cables can also be replaced if they break and I never need to worry about losing a dongle or a future Bluetooth standards making my stuff obsolete. USB has proven it's longevity - you can adapt a USB 2.0 port to USB-C and it works fine, that's 26 years of compatibility and counting.

If it ain't broke, don't change it.

For my personal Mac, which I do some (MMORPG) gaming on, I use a Logitech Lightspeed mouse. It's a low latency wireless protocol that uses a USB dongle. The mouse itself runs on a single AA battery that lasts months with my typical usage level.

For my work Mac, I keep a Logitech MX Master at the office. It's Bluetooth and has an internal rechargeable battery, charged through USB type C, that lasts a solid month of all-day usage. It's heavier than you want for gaming, but ergonomic and I don't notice obvious latency.

[Off topic]

Have you tried writing a book? That was great phrasing. You have a way with words I greatly enjoy. Bye now