When the Apple Mac Mini came out last year, even the most Apple-unfriendly PC users found themselves hankering after one.

Indeed, Apple has made no secret of the fact that the dinky little system is specifically targeted at ‘switchers’ – people migrating from Microsoft to Mac. But it can be hard to make the switch completely, so many Mini owners have kept their old PC running too.

To save on both cost and space, those wishing to run separate Mac and Windows systems simultaneously need to find a way for the two to co-exist using a single display and set of input devices. And that’s where a KVM – meaning 'keyboard, video and mouse' – device such as the Belkin Switch2 comes in.

The Switch2 has been built specifically for use with a PC and a Mac Mini (although it will work with other Macs) and this is reflected in the unit’s design. Apple-white, shiny and with the same basic size as the Mini itself, the device is intended to sit directly underneath the Apple computer, increasing its height by less than 2cm.

It has two built-in VGA video, audio and USB cables – one for your Mini and one for your PC. Attach a USB mouse and keyboard and hook up a monitor and you’re pretty much there.

Once set up, it’s easy to switch between systems using the touch sensitive button on the unit’s front panel. Other useful buttons here include eject and volume controls.

The software provided isn’t actually necessary, but adds a useful desktop switch icon as well as some additional keyboard shortcuts and a handy option for switching video and USB without audio, so that you can carry on listening to a music library stored on one computer while working on the other.

It’s not often that we’re surprised by how well something works, particularly when the something in question is effectively just a switch between two computers.

But in the case of the Belkin Switch2 we were genuinely impressed by the ease of setup and the apparent thoughtfulness that has gone into both the product’s design and its features.