Logitech Laptop Mouse In the Palm of My Hand

My Logitech desktop wireless mouse was dying.  The mouse itself was just fine but unfortunately connection to the USB dongle was slacking off.  At first I thought it was just the batteries but once I changed them and the response didn't improve 100% I realized that it was time to go shopping.  I wasn't too surprised that the mouse was dying - my son had owned it prior to my taking it over and it had been through a lot of use with him.  I'd used it daily for almost a year and a half so we'd definitely gotten our money's worth out of it.

I don't normally head to Wal-Mart for computer related anything but today, being lazy, I decided to battle the throngs of people and ended up staring at over a dozen different mice for about 10 minutes trying to determine which mouse would be the best value for the money.  They had corded optical, wireless optical, mice that glowed and ones that cycled through several colors as you used it.  They had ones that offered a 4 slot hub with a calculator bar which I was actually going to purchase but did I really need another hub?  There were even ones you could actually run under water to clean!  The prices ranged from the lowly $5 no frills corded model to a top of the line bells and whistles unit for $119.

The V220 Cordless Optical mouse by Logitech caught my eye.  It was compact, wireless and only took one Double A battery (AA).  The battery according to the packaging would last 6 months!  In our home batteries are a mainstay of computer and electronic life.  We really should be buying shares in several battery Companies for the number of them that we need for all our gadgets.  That I could use a single battery for 6 months?  Well, consider that a selling point!

The Mouse measures all of about 2" across and about 3" in length and fits perfectly in the palm of the hand.  This makes it comfortable and easy to control.  It's very light and because it doesn't require any special type of surface to work on, the optical lense allows me to use it on the slippery desk surface my laptop sits on with no problem.  It's not at all uncomfortable to use and the packaging allowed me to actually test the fit quite easily.

The sides of the mouse have soft rubber which offers you a great surface to rest thumb and fingers against while moving the mouse around and the central wheel moves easily and allows for spanning long text or websites by depressing it and just dragging the mouse for quick maneuvering so that you don't have to continually use the scroll button, just hold and move the mouse up or down for fast response.  It offers zoom in and out and a 1000 dpi optical resolution which is approximately 2 times more responsive than other optical mice on the market.

Installing the battery was quick, just press the button on the underside of the mouse which releases the cover on the front and in slips the battery.  Pop the cover back on and away you go.  The USB mini receiver is compact and stores into the bottom of the mouse for easily keeping the mouse and receiver together for traveling. It also has an 'on-off' switch on the underside to help save battery power when not in use or when un-docked from the laptop.

I chose the black & gray color scheme as I'm not too partial to the other colors they had in stock which were pale pink and vibrant lime green.  You can also get them in Red, Blue, black and silver and a teal color.  The cost for the colored mice run approximately $10 more.

A 'battery low' indicator light is easy to see on the upper side of the mouse and the mouse itself is a 3 button one.  The buttons can be changed for left/right use by downloading the software from Logitech called Setpoint.  This software will leave any settings you currently have registered for your laptop's trackball/track pad intact and only install those features applicable to the hand held mouse.  The download is only a few seconds and installation is relatively quick.  The options the software provides are fairly basic, speed of cursor, game detection, battery life and the left/right buttons.

Curious, I took a quick walk to the local Electronics store just beside Wal-Mart, I tend to always want to ensure I've gotten the best deal which drives my family crazy sometimes.  They had this particular mouse for $44.99 and the colored V220's were going for $79.99, so I'd say I got myself a pretty good deal.  So far, this mouse is one of the least expensive I've purchased over the past several years.  If this mouse works as well as the other Logitech equipment we have, and for as long, I should easily be able to use it with my laptop or a desktop for at least a few years troublefree.  The mouse comes with a 3 year warranty from Logitech and works well with Mac, WinXP and WinVista operating systems.