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Kensington Pocketmouse Pro Wireless

Kensington Pocketmouse Pro Wireless

List Price: $49.99
Your Price: $40.84
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: nice design, poor performance
Review: I would first like to say that I don't have experience with other wirelss mice so I don't know if my experience with this one is common to all wireless mice or only with this particular model.

When I bought my new laptop I thought it would be nice to have a small mouse since I can't stand using the trackpad or other pointing devices. I decided on this model because of its size, (about the same or slightly smaller than a regular mouse) optical sensor, and wirelessness.

I thought the wireless feature would be nice because I won't have to bother with tangled cords and since this particular mouse has a receiver that can swivel, I thought I won't experience too much problem with the signal not getting picked up (I was wrong). I was also attracted by the fact that the mouse turns itself off when yous store the receiver inside the mouse itself when its not being used, to conserve batteries.

At first, the mouse seems to function well. I plugged it into the laptop and it was ready to go. But after using it for one night, I began to have problems with the signal. At first, double clicking occasionally failed. I would click twice and it would recognize only one click or act as if I had held down the button. I tried swiveling the receiver to try to improve reception but that didn't work. Then the cursor sometimes failed to move when I move the mouse (so it would sometimes have like jumpy movements), again probably due to poor signal. These are occasional annoyances that are tolerable if just browsing the web but I would definitely not want to be using this when playing a computer game. Also, I tried to conserve the batteries by putting the receiver back into its little cubby hole in the mouse whenever i was done with using it (maybe a couple hours of use a day) but still the batteries died within 3 weeks.

I was pretty disappointed with the performance of this mouse and would not recommand it. I've since bought a cheapo corded Fellowes optical notebook mouse and it works great with no problems. Its a bit smaller in size, which I find fits my hand even better. Also, I don't have to worry about batteries dying. It even has two extra buttons on the side that allows you to go back to a previous page or forward to the next page in internet explorer. I bunched up the excess cord with a twist tie and that took care of my worries about tangled cords.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An update and reality check.
Review: I wrote one of the initial reviews of this mouse about 6 months ago. At that time I wrote about the great properties of this mouse. After reading the reviews that proceeded mine, especially the later ones, I've noticed that alot of people are disappointed in this mouse. Most of these people are using the mouse as a replacement for their desktop mouse. Let me make this clear, this mouse is NOT designed for use 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. If you are looking for a desktop mouse replacement, get a different wireless mouse. This mouse is designed to be compact, portable, and convenient. I leave mine in my laptop bag for the times that I need a mouse instead of a touchpad. I use it about 2-3 times a week when I'm traveling, or I'm in a meeting with my laptop. I have had no problems with the mouse, but do realize that this is a "light duty" mouse.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Features, yes. Quality, no.
Review: I've owned both the Targus optical wireless minimouse and this new Kensington Pocketpro. I had the Targus when I had a Titanium G4, but decided to "upgrade" to the Kensington with my new 12" G4. The good news is that the Kensington corrects the shortfalls of the Targus: 1) compartment to hide the USB receiver so you don't lose it [ The main trade off here is that in order to accomplish this the Kensington is a full-sized mouse (almost twice the size of the Targus)] and 2) shut-off feature when receiver is stowed to save batteries.

The bad news is threefold: First, the optics in the Kensington are inferior to the Targus. There wasn't a surface the Targus couldn't handle...even very low-contrast formica like on my desk at work and the tables at Starbucks. However, the Kensington does not reliably work on formica or any surface with low-contrast patterns or a slight sheen. I am forced to use a piece of paper with printing on it as a mouse pad which is REALLY poor. Second, the Kensington folks made the receiver 270 degree swivel-able...however, this is not really necessary in my opinion (for laptop use) and feels VERY flimsy.... Finally, like the receiver, the construction of the mouse itself ain't that great. Within a couple weeks of use I had problems with the batteries popping up spontaneously. Flimsy, springs. I had to resolve this with tape! Then, soon after, the plastic latch that keeps the battery compartment sealed broke...probably because of the battery thing. The mouse still works, but the back end of the mouse "hood" is permanently ajar.

In conclusion, better optics/smaller package/sturdier construction...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best Wireless mouse for Travelers
Review: Kensington got this one right... I've owned several "travel" mice, both wired and wireless, but this one takes the cake. The first small travel mouse I bought was a wireless one from Targus. It had several problems, namely pitiful range, terrible battery life, and it was cumbersome.

1) The range issue was because the receiver was parallel to the table, and my USB port was on the opposite side of the computer from where I use my mouse. Kensington addressed this by making their receiver swivel 270 degrees to a vertical position.

2) The Targus had the mouse and receiver. This required me to keep up with both pieces. The Kensington mouse has a cool recess in the body of the mouse that holds the receiver when not in use. It also serves a very critical function described below next.

3) The battery life of the Targus was greatly reduced because it would NEVER TURN OFF. If the mouse did not detect motion in a few minutes, it would stand-by. There was no hardware on/off to conserve the battery. The problem is the mouse, when in my computer bag, would move around and the mouse would power up. This is a poor design. The Kensington mouse includes a switch that is automatically triggered when the receiver is stored in the body of the mouse. Very cool.

I also own the retractable cord Kinsington Mouse. This is a good mouse, but the retractor and the cord are very fragile and the scroll wheel is too jumpy. The wireless mouse eliminates the retractor and cable, and the scroll wheel is a much better design.

KUDOS TO KENSINGTON!!!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Bad button and poor battery life.
Review: Like many other reviewers, my mouse's left button broke after a few weeks. I'd click once and it would register as if the button was being held down. This happens randomly (about every 20 clicks). It becomes mind-numbingly annoying. I'll probably buy a new (different brand of) mouse and be done with it.

Also, battery life is POOR. If you buy this mouse, better buy a crate of AAA batteries. Blah!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Never again - battery hog, cheaply made
Review: Looks good. Feels decent. Works well.... WHEN IT WORKS.
1. The USB dongle you plug in is too thick, so you can't use your second USB port on many laptops. I actually used a large flat file to file down the sides of the part that plugs in so I could use my 2nd USB port again. This alone makes this thing JUNK. What were they thinking?

2. Massive battery hog. I'm lucky if this thing can go a week on one set of AAA batteries. There is no off switch. It turns off when you unplug the dongle from your laptop and put it inside the mouse via a small door. Nice idea. But if you use your computer on your desk every day, you don't want to be unplugging the dongle every day because...

3. The dongle is a cheap piece of crap. After a few months, it has started acting up. It have to swivel it around to get it to work again. So the rotating contact mechanism must be going, and it isn't making reliable contact any more.

4. Randomly goes into "stall" mode where it jerks and won't respond. This mostly happens when the machine is busy (but it's a 2.4 GHz P4, and it isn't running above, say, 50% CPU.

All in all, NEVER AGAIN.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good, but heavy!
Review: Perhaps I need to put this mouse on a surface with less friction, but after about 20 minutes of using the mouse, my wrist hurts bad because it's at least 3x heavier than my previous Kensington Mouse in a Box.

I like having a wireless mouse because I don't like my feet tangling in the wires, however, if this continues to hurt my wrist like this I may have to get rid of it. Since the batteries are in the 'butt' of the mouse, sometimes the back-end won't move as easily and I need to use extra fingers and pressure to get it to move. I do have a semi-rough surface that I have this mouse on, if I found a glass plate of some sort to put it on, that probably would be a lot nicer, I'll have to look into it.

Other than this, the mouse and all Kensington Products are very good.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Works well, needs off switch
Review: Seems to work very well (only been using for a couple of hours now).

You need to install MouseWorks software which is only available on Kensington's web site before you can really use it. It will work out of the box, but not well. This software is not provided in the package -.5 star.

Also, no off switch on the mouse. You need to remove the receiver from the USB and place it back inside the mouse before it will shut off. This is really annoying if you frequently use your laptop as a desktop -.5 star.

But, that aside this product seems to work very well. Wireless rules!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: It works as expected
Review: The ability to stick the USB receiver in the bottom of the mouse is very convenient. Overall this mouse performs very well, and is sufficiently small to be carried anywhere. Convenient features to see on it would be back and forward buttons, but it is possible that Microsoft is the only mouse manufacturer that does that.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: need to change battery every 3-4days
Review: The battery life of this product is really too bad. I need to change the battery every 3-4 days. I don't know how they can put such an inmature product in the market. My another IBM wireless mouse need to be change for several months.


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