After the recent demise of my Apple Mighty Mouse I was on the hunt for a new bluetooth mouse that could take its place. The Might Mouse worked well up until the point that the track ball got clogged and stopped working. I tried all the remedies found online but none of them really helped; after only a few days of working it would go back to being clogged again and I would have waste more time trying to fix it. My final solution was to open the thing up and try to clean it, and, well that didn’t go so well. Anyway, I’m mouse-less and anxious to get a new one so I do what I always do, vast amounts of research.
I started by searching some Mac forums because there’s bound to be some posts about this topic. Sure enough there are some good ones including a pretty lengthly and informative discussion at MacRumors on just the subject, bluetooth mouses. After gathering all the mouses that fit my needs(bluetooth, looks good, works well) I started researching each one, one by one. Instead of boring you with my useless research I will just give you the info on the one I chose, the Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000.
I picked this mouse because it got pretty decent reviews, it looks nice, it was bluetooth and it wasn’t that expensive($34 at the time of writing this). The mouse looks pretty good especially next to my white Macbook and so far it works pretty well. It is on the small side as far as mouses are considered so if you’re one that dislikes small mouses you might want to stay clear. I have pretty large hands, well, long fingers actually and I find that it’s not uncomfortable to use all-day but it’s not as conformable as a full-size mouse(obviously). The bluetooth paired really easily with my Macbook and when the computer comes out of sleep mode it’s quick to pair back up again which is a must. Accuracy seems pretty good all though I don’t do tasks that require pin point accuracy like graphic design so I can’t comment too much on that but the pointer is not jumping all over the place. One thing I did notice though is it’s very sensitive, I had to turn down my track speed when I first got it and it takes a little getting used to.
Overall I’m very happy with this mouse, assuming the battery life is decent which only time will tell and it doesn’t start to malfunction I think the Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000 is a great laptop mouse and replacement for the Apple Might Mouse.
Pros: Stylish, affordable, bluetooth pairs with Macbooks out of the box and works pretty well so far.
Cons: Small, if you have large hands you might get tired of it. Very sensitive.
Hey
I’m also on the look out for a BT mouse (waiting for delivery of a new uMBP 17″). Did you consider the Logitech V470 at all? It’s the one I’m leaning to right now. It has a side-to-side action on its wheel not sure the MS one does (maybe bit of a gimmick).
Anyway, I started of looking at your page out of interest on your work, and ended up as usual on what stuff I can buy.
Cheers,
Jas.