I hate touchpads with a *passion*. When I was casing the laptop market last year for my graduation present, I was hard-pressed to even find a laptop that didn’t have a touchpad, even if it already had an eraser head mouse in the center of the keyboard. Luckily, Toshiba’s Tecra M2 was a perfect match for all of my criteria (and I had a substantial and picky list of criteria!) including a little eraser head mouse, but I would need to live with a touchpad as well. I have since learned to cope.
The move to a laptop-only personal computing model from a desktop and laptop setup was relatively painless for me, given all of my happy laptop’s built-in (as opposed to external add-on) features. However, there is one bit of external hardware I can’t live without: a mouse.
I’m really skilled with the eraser head mouse, but even at my best, graphics work or tons of copy-and-paste work with an eraser head mouse is really difficult, so I’ve always had a mouse around for that stuff. For the longest time, I had a $15 standard size USB optical mouse that was handy enough to carry around but wouldn’t be a huge heartbreaker if I lost or broke it. But I’m find that I need to swap some of my current hardware for smaller bits to accomodate my more pick-up-and-go lifestyle.
The Targus travel mouse with the retracting cable, though popular with the travel computing set, was not an option for me. While the tiny portable size was just the right size for my small hands and my need for a light backpack load, I find the retracting feature annoying, and I’ve seen the little cable get tangled up and crimped over time. So I decided that wireless was the way to go for me.
At one point, my SO’s sister gave me a travel-sized wireless USB ball mouse which was branded with her firm’s logo for giveaway shwag. It was cute, but only worked for the first month or so, then got all sorts of jittery and cranky even with religious cleaning. I wanted to buy within a budget, but I definitely wanted something that would work for whatever the long haul would be, and wouldn’t require arguing with a mouse ball. So I decided I needed an optical mouse with a good name.
So off to my typical tech buying research haunts I browsed, checking out reviews on PCMag.com, reviews.cnet.com, Amazon.com, Epinions.com, and various bulletin boards where geeks congregate and talk shop. For my budget (the prices ranged from ~$24 to ~$55 or so) and needs, the Microsoft Wireless Notebook Optical Mouse (in the sexy Slate color) was the best option. I ordered it off Amazon, since I had a bit of gift certificate money left there, but there are a few other places that have it slightly less expensive than the $34.49 that I paid for it.
I must say, it’s the cutest thing *ever*. It’s smaller than a standard mouse, but larger than a Targus travel mouse, with a comfortable ergonomic design for it’s size, including an easy grip silhouette, comfy finger dips for each button, and a well-placed scroll wheel. The battery life is supposed be three times the standard for an optical mouse, which will come in handy when I’m travelling. And the kicker is that the USB transmitter for the mouse pops firmly into the bottom of the mouse, which then turns off the mouse, and is handy for travel and storage. I plugged the transmitter into a USB port on the side of my laptop, and while the transmitter bit in it’s horizontal position blocks other plugs, it swivels up to a vertical position, solving that problem. As soon as it was plugged in, it was working, no prompts for installing hardware or anything. It’s a sweet design in a cute little package.
I’ve had it for a little under a week, and I’m terribly pleased. If something goes awry with it over time, you’ll hear about it, otherwise no news is good news. So if you’re looking for a handy travel mouse, I’d recommend it.
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