Bluetooth Mouse vs 'Wireless' Mouse... explain differences and tell what mouse you us

Wireless mice are bluetooth mice unless otherwise specified. Some people prefer not having to charge a mouse, or don't like the tiny lag which can ruin gaming for some gamers.

psychofreak said:

Wireless mice are bluetooth mice unless otherwise specified.

Click to expand...

No actually, MOST wireless mice are RF-based and require their own small USB receiver. Bluetooth is a specific wireless protocol standard, and it seems fewer and fewer peripheral makers are making Bluetooth mice.

Bluetooth mice tend to be more expensive then their proprietary RF brethren. I hate wasting USB ports too since my MacBook only has 2. I hate unnecessary dongles as well.

Masai. said:

killmoms

why would fewer manufacturers make bluetooth mice... aren't they better than the radio frequency ones?

Click to expand...

Not necessarily. I think it's because of the relatively low pick-up on Bluetooth technology in the PC world. Nearly all Macs come with it built in, but it seems less prevalent on the other side of the fence. Thats just conjecture on my part.

I know Logitech used to have several Bluetooth options, now there seems to be less and less. For instance, the only Bluetooth mouse they still make is the MX900, which wasn't even new when I bought mine 4 and a half years ago, and now it's only available if you buy it WITH a keyboard. They haven't made a newer Bluetooth mouse since. Just one example.

Masai. said:

killmoms

why would fewer manufacturers make bluetooth mice... aren't they better than the radio frequency ones?

Click to expand...

Although they may be, they are still are not as common as RF mice . We can't speculate on the manufacturer's choice or lack of to discontinue and replace the RF mice for blue tooth ones although it wouldn't be that bad an idea but the tech of using bluetooth mice needs to be improved.

I actually like/prefer my RF mice for 3 reasons.

• It recharges itself rather than replacing batteries
• It has less lag than a bluetooth mouse
• It is quickly recognized right off the bat after say wake up. Bluetooth mice will often sleep when not in use or if the parent signal is lost. You then have to reaquire signal between the two to work. Mighty Mouse actually has been the best one I've seen that works the best in closing this gap, but her kensington pilot mouse isn't recognized after wake up, we tried another mouse, same thing so she now uses the MM and I went back to my RF logitech mouse.

Masai. said:

killmoms

why would fewer manufacturers make bluetooth mice... aren't they better than the radio frequency ones?

Click to expand...

A bluetooth mouse is an RF mouse. Bluetooth just represents the RF protocol it uses to communicate with the mouse. Logitechs standard RF mouse use their own specially devised protocol for talking with mice, MS uses a different one with their RF mice.

As to which is better. Well a specially implemented-for-mice RF protocol is going to be better than the more general bluetooth protocol, especially when it comes to high speed movement needed for games. A specially designed RF standard can be designed to run at a higher sample rate than bluetooth runs.

Bluetooth mice are also more expensive because companies have to pay to use the bluetooth logo/protocol.

Bluetooth though is nice for Mac's because they mostly all come with bluetooth as standard.

I use a logitech MX Laser which uses their own proprietary RF standard.

I used the bluetooth Mighty Mouse for a few days with my mac pro but quickly switched to the MX Revolution. The USB receiver for the MX is plugged into the keyboard usb slot so it's quite close to the mouse. I perceive no real difference between the two mice in terms of responsiveness. Overall impression of the two is that the mighty mouse is mediocre and the mx revolution is quite good.

I had a bluetooth mouse for a while, it always felt a little sluggish compared with the other wireless mice i've used. This was a couple years ago so they may have gotten better.

amik said:

I used the bluetooth Mighty Mouse for a few days with my mac pro but quickly switched to the MX Revolution. The USB receiver for the MX is plugged into the keyboard usb slot so it's quite close to the mouse. I perceive no real difference between the two mice in terms of responsiveness. Overall impression of the two is that the mighty mouse is mediocre and the mx revolution is quite good.

Click to expand...

For me it's not so much the responsiveness although I do notice it. It's more the getting it recognized after the laptop wakes up. The MM was good at this, 2 mice we tried weren't that great and had to go into BT prefs to reconnect it. That was a pain we could do without so we ditched them all together and went back to the MM for the MB.

BT mouse with seperate BT adapter might be different, we were using the built in one. THAT we haven't tried. But we're not going to spend money to risk a 3rd strike on BT mice.

I prefer, conceptually, Bluetooth mice, but in my actual use I've ended up with a dongle-based wireless one. Not having a fiddly dongle sticking out of the laptop is a huge plus.

First, my personal ubermouse (the MX) isn't available in a bluetooth version. So I don't really have a choice if I want that mouse. Which is sad. Sadder still since the USB dongle is huge (sticks out maybe 3cm), and runs SERIOUS risk of getting snapped right off if someone sits down beside me or bumps it.

It does, however, have a rock-solid connection, no sleep issues, and no perceivable lag to me.

In contrast, the BT mouse I own (the RadTech one that can charge its NiMH batteries via a USB cable while you work, which is an awesome feature and also means you don't need to carry a charger while out and about) has an effective range of about 6 inches from my MBP. Seriously--if I have the MBP on a table and use the mouse beside me, it will start skipping. I don't know if this is an issue with that particular mouse (the Wii's controllers are BT, and mine work fine from at least 12 feet from the Wii), with the MBP's antenna, or something else, but it sucks. There's also periodic lag or minor dropouts.

I had an Apple 1-button BT for a while, which had somewhat better range, but it also tended to not wake properly when waking the computer or such.


Interesting side-note: While my BT devices coexist comfortably with my wireless network, if I'm maxing out the 802.11g bandwidth (big file transfer to another computer on the network), my MX will freeze up, so there's obviously some overlap. It's fine under any other network conditions, though.

I've also noticed that full-bandwidth airport transfers will cause the internal speaker in the Wii remote to stop playing sound; all controls work fine, but obviously the way it transmits sound overlaps with 802.11 in some way.

killmoms said:

I know Logitech used to have several Bluetooth options, now there seems to be less and less. For instance, the only Bluetooth mouse they still make is the MX900, which wasn't even new when I bought mine 4 and a half years ago, and now it's only available if you buy it WITH a keyboard. They haven't made a newer Bluetooth mouse since. Just one example.

Click to expand...

Logitech has the V470 which is a bluetooth mouse for notebooks. They also have quite a few keyboard and mice combos that are bluetooth. I agree with the comment that not many PC users use bluetooth so that's probably part of the story. I've also had a lot better luck with rf vs bluetooth mice in the past. I just ordered a Logitech VX nano because it was on sale. Bluetooth problems with the MX5000 keyboard and mice included dropouts and all sorts of disconnects that were really frustrating.

I do use the previous gen apple bluetooth keyboard and have no issues with it whatsoever so I don't think all bluetooth technology sucks, just a lot of implementations of it.

Back button?

edsai said:

Logitech has the V470 which is a bluetooth mouse for notebooks. They also have quite a few keyboard and mice combos that are bluetooth. I agree with the comment that not many PC users use bluetooth so that's probably part of the story. I've also had a lot better luck with rf vs bluetooth mice in the past. I just ordered a Logitech VX nano because it was on sale.

Click to expand...

So can you program the logitech with a back button?

nauset24 said:

So can you program the logitech with a back button?

Click to expand...

Browser forward and back buttons are already set but you can change their function from the default in Logitech's Control Center. Still getting used to the new style of scroll wheel but other than that, the mouse rocks. The nano receiver is really nice too, I just leave it in the laptop. If it weren't for the small size of the receiver, I would've went bluetooth to cut down on long appendages hanging from the mac.

I use the bluetooth Mighty Mouse and love it. The only problem with is it gets dirty from time to time and the dirt clogs up the scroll ball but you can easily fix it with some isopropyl alcohol. I also like using it because it doesn't take up a USB port like someone else mentioned. My new MacBook Air is about to arrive in the next day or so and the USB ports are pretty important as there is only one of them for the notebook.

The reason less manufacturers don't release Bluetooth mice is because the user base is pretty small compared to those able to use a regular RF wireless mouse over USB. As we all know PC's both desktop and laptop fare outweigh the number of MAC computers in consumer homes and PC's don't come with Bluetooth standard, at least not the desktops. Usually even with the laptops you can to select bluetooth as an addon and with a desktop you have to buy a Bluetooth dongle.

And considering the number of USB ports on most PC motherboards today it's not big deal to use one for the small USB dongle required for a regular RF mouse. RF wireless mice also have less issues than Bluetooth mice and are generally faster as far as tracking is concerned.

It's just general economics. If you were a manufacturer would you rather make a product that you knew you could sell 1,000 of or a product you knew you could sell 100 of.

until recently the selection of bluetooth mice kinda sucked. i'm using a logitech v470 that i absolutely love, but there were BT mice i used before it that weren't up to snuff with their usb counterparts. there still isn't a great selection of BT mice, but i guess as long as people are willing to put up with losing a usb port manufacturers don't really have to try.