IOGear's MiniView III USB

IOGear ran away with our initial KVM comparison a year ago. The IOGear unit had a competitive feature set, but more importantly, it came with a full set of four cables bundled right in the box. The switch we tested didn't support USB at all, but its performance and incredible value were compelling enough to make it the top pick in our shootout.

The MiniView III USB is a returning champion of sorts, and this time around it's decked out to support all sorts of USB goodness. Can it rise to the top again?

Note: We were only able to obtain the 2-port version of the MiniView III USB, but a 4-port model exists with an identical feature set (of course at a higher price). We'll be referring to that higher price for the purposes of the comparison, and treating the 2-port MiniView III USB as if it were the 4-port model. It's the best we can do under the circumstances.

A familiar face
Unlike Belkin's radical form factor, IOGear's MiniView III USB looks almost identical to its predecessors. The industrial aesthetic agrees with me, so that's not a bad thing.

If the Army were every to need a KVM switch, this would be it. The MiniView III USB is encased in metal and has a couple of rubber bumpers that protect its corners—and your desk's finish. You can remove the rubber bits if you want, but the switch is more apt to be pulled off the back of your desk by cable weight without them.

The MiniView III USB's keyboard and mouse ports are located at the front of the unit, along with buttons and LEDs for each computer connected to the switch. There are actually two LEDs for each computer port, one to indicate if a computer is plugged in, and another to indicate if it's currently selected. If you don't have all the ports filled, that extra LED can help.

Keyboard shortcuts are also offered, letting you switch PCs with just a couple of keystrokes.

At the rear, the MiniView III USB serves up a USB and VGA port for each computer, plus two USB peripheral ports. You won't find audio support here, nor will you be able to flash the switch's firmware.

True to form, IOGear bundles all the necessary cables with its MiniView III USB. The 6' VGA and USB cables are bound together. Including cables with the switch is a great idea, and the only complaint one could possibly have is that all four cables might not be needed right away. IOGear's VGA cable is thinner than the ones we had from Belkin, which gave me some initial reservations about video signal quality, but I couldn't discern any difference in signal quality at 1600x1200x32 at 75Hz.

OSD nirvana
IOGear has given the MiniView III USB a killer on-screen display that reveals a lot more functionality than you might have expected given the device's plain exterior. Each time you switch computers or USB peripherals, you get a friendly little pop-up message telling you where all the connections sit.

Take a look at the above picture and notice that the computer names beside KVM and USB are different. That's right; you can switch the KVM component of the MiniView III USB and the USB peripherals independent of each other. Sweet!

If you're not into keyboard shortcuts or the MiniView III USB's front-panel buttons, you can always fire up the full OSD and use that to switch between computers. Launching the OSD menu also gives you access to a wealth of other little features.

Through the OSD menu you can name each connected computer, lock the console with a password, choose different hotkeys, adjust auto scan durations, and even pick where certain messages appear on the screen. We all tweak a few settings here and there with our monitors and motherboards, and being able to do the same thing with a KVM switch is certainly not a bad thing.

USB switching bliss
The MiniView III USB isn't a very deep box, and that creates a bit of a mess when you have it on a desk. In order to easily reach the buttons, the KVM switch must be pulled up close to your keyboard. However, pulling the MiniView that close drags a whole lot of cable across your desk that don't need to be there. Thankfully, you don't actually have to use the physical buttons on the switch. In fact, the combination of hotkeys and an excellent OSD mean that you can easily put the MiniView III USB on the floor and never need to even look at it. There's certainly no desktop cable clutter if you do things that way.

Independent KVM and USB peripheral switching is where the MiniView III USB really shines; it's almost two switches in one. Your USB keyboard and mouse are bundled with the monitor when switching between computers, but any peripherals plugged into the device's USB peripheral ports stay put until you tell them to switch PCs. You do have to use hotkeys or the OSD menu to switch the USB peripherals, as there are no corresponding buttons on the actual switch, but it's a small sacrifice to make.

Let's say you're in the middle of burning a CD with a USB CD writer. Instead of having to wait to switch to another PC until the burning process is complete, you can just switch over the KVM component without interrupting the burning process on the other machine. You've pretty much got a fully functional USB peripheral switch bundled right in there with your KVM switch, and that's a heck of a combo.