MOUSE WILL ENHANCE COMPUTING
When you sit in front of your computer, the
quality of the screen, keyboard and your mouse are the three things
that will immediately effect your computing experience. And a new
cordless mouse from Logitech is set to take that level of quality to
the next level. With so many new mice being offered today, it takes a
bit of doing to get noticed by this columnist and I can see where the
efforts behind the new MX 700 have certainly paid off.
 First
of all, it's a great looking mouse. The silver and black styling is
both functional as well as modernistic. The organic shape and size of
the MX 700 fits comfortably underneath your cupped hand in its natural
resting position. The primary left and right buttons are seamlessly
integrated into the silver design trim so that there are no apparent
buttons to press. Merely pressing on the areas on which your index and
third fingers rest activates the buttons. Two additional buttons are
positioned for the thumb. The scroll wheel is itself a button with two
additional buttons places directly above and below the wheel. Pressing
and holding either of these automatically scrolls the current window
in the respective direction. I found this to be particularly pleasing
as using the wheel to scroll up and down through a window with endless
amounts of data can become tedious. Just holding down the scroll
button makes this process far more practical. The included software
lets you redefine any of the mouse buttons to perform just about any
control process you desire.
The MX 700 introduces two new abilities to the
Logitech line of mice. The first one is near and dear to me as my one
major objection to a cordless mouse is that I need to keep feeding it
expensive batteries every month or so. This goes away as the MX 700
uses rechargeable Nickel-Metal Hydride batteries. These are the
rechargeable batteries that don't suffer from the memory effect of the
older NiCad battery technology. The cleverly designed recharging stand
is also the MX 700's transceiver that plugs into any available USB
port. You might wonder how the unit can recharge the mouse since when
a computer is turned off, no power is directed to the USB port.
Logitech has added a small AC adapter that plugs into the USB plug
itself. I like this added touch since you don't have to string an
additional cord up to the charger base. The less wires across my desk,
the better. Initially the MX 700 had no charge but I was pleasantly
surprised to see that even only a five minute initial charge was more
than enough to last through my daily session. Logitech says the MX 700
will rapidly charge to full capacity in less than two hours. A
blinking red indicator on the mouse lets you know a charge is needed.
While it is charging, the light blinks green, then turns solid green
after a full charge.
The other most notable ability of the MX 700 is
Logitech's newly designed "MX Optical Engine" tracking system that
combines a high optical resolution and frame rate of tracking speed.
That translates into an extremely accurate and reliable method of
tracking the mouse pointer relative to how you move the mouse on the
surface. Even the smallest movement is measures via the 800 dpi
resolution sensor built into the MX 700.
The USB cordless mouse comes with Windows, and
Macintosh OS 8.6 - 9 and OS X software that lets you define the
buttons, and control tracking and window scrolling speeds. If you're
looking to treat yourself to one of the new generation mice becoming
available, the MX 700 from Logitech is a solid choice. $79.95.
www.logitech.com |
