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Anyone found that perfect BT mouse yet?

Regular_John

Regular_John

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Ok folks so I'm about to pull the trigger on the 14" iBook(just gotta wait for one more cheque to clear horray!).

I think I've decided I may as well drop the extra $60 and get blue tooth installed specifically for the purpose of getting a wireless mouse. However the one button apple mouse will not cut it. I'm coming from a PC world and I'm hopelessly addicted to my 2 buttons and scroll wheel.

I know alot of people are partial to http://www.macmice.com/ but I've read some less than stellar reviews of the mice(no click on the scroll, very easy to inadvertanly click both buttons).

So I'm wondering if anyone's found a better BT mouse yet? I'm not overly concerned with matching the look of the iBook at all. In fact I'll even use a microsoft mouse if it turns out to the right one for the job.

So lil help anyone?
 
I have the Microsoft BT mouse. I like it, but I'm still looking for the perfect BT mouse as well. 🙂 Main drawback is there's no on/off switch, and it's a touch bigger than I'd ideally prefer. Having five buttons is nice though.
 
I faced the same issue when buying my new imac w/ BT... don't care for the onebutton mouse and a little worried about the macmice product and company when I researched it.... I picked up a Macally BTmouse Jr for less than $40 on ebay and it's worked lovely for the month I've had it. I actually like the smaller size, and the two buttons plus scroll wheel is enuf for me.

Plan on buying rechargeable batteries and replacing them every 4 to 7 days tho!
 
I'd like to see kensington's studio mouse with bluetooth. It has wireless already, but I don't want a dongle hanging off the side of my pbook, especially since I already have bluetooth internal.
 
Delay

I'm still making my mind up whether to get a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. I've heard there's a slight delay? I do play the odd game so obviously delays would mess with games a little. I understand a cabled mouse would automatically be faster, but is the delay noticeable?
 
harveypooka said:
I'm still making my mind up whether to get a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. I've heard there's a slight delay? I do play the odd game so obviously delays would mess with games a little. I understand a cabled mouse would automatically be faster, but is the delay noticeable?
Click to expand...

Yes. The only wireless mouse without a delay is the Logitech MX 1000, which is certainly not bluetooth. Bluetooth mice will always see lag - bluetooth itself is just not fast enough.
 
mashinhead said:
...have a question though, if you have a built in BT adapter, do you have to still use the one included with the mouse? and conversely if you don't have one, will the one that comes with the mouse act as an adaptor for other BT devices?
Click to expand...

I had an iBook without internal BT the usb dongle that came with the mouse, a MS BT mouse, only worked plugged directly to the iBook not from the keyboard and did serve my SE T610 for iSync.

My usb dongle from Belkin would do both the mouse and the phone from either usb on the iBook or keyboard and connected to the mouse quicker than MS's own dongle.

Now I have a internal BT in my iMac and the BT connection to the mouse keeps dropping out every few minutes and is a pain in the arse to reconnect. I plan to try moving my desktop about so the phone(DECT wireless) isn't right next to the PC but failing that it'll be back to a wired mouse and a black mark against Apple's internal BT.

MS's BT mouse is great when it's working.
 
Bern said:
I have the Radtech BT500 in white to match my iBook.

It's a great portable mouse.

http://www.radtech.us/Products/BT500.aspx
Click to expand...

dang, it's tiny. i might consider it...

by the way, the targus mouse i mentioned before... it doesn't officially support Mac... another reason i'm curious to hear from any brave Mac souls out there who may have taken a gamble and tried using it...
 
harveypooka said:
I've heard there's a slight delay? I do play the odd game so obviously delays would mess with games a little. I understand a cabled mouse would automatically be faster, but is the delay noticeable?
Click to expand...

I haven't noticed any lag and the connection never drops. I use the internal Bluetooth in my Powerbook and a Radtech BT500. I play multiplayer Call of Duty with it, and if that's not a good indicator I don't know what is. 🙂

It's a good little mouse. Early after I bought it the oil from my hand made the sides grey, and it's a tad pricey, but I am satisifed. However, it is really small, so unless you have small hands like me, forget about it.

Another thing is that because it's so small it uses 2xAAA batteries. This isn't even remotely scientific, but if I use it for three hours each day, I would be replacing the batteries every 1 1/2-2 weeks.
 
My Apple BT mouse has NEVER lagged, I think most people complaining about BT lag are either drama queens, have not actually used a BT mouse (and going by what others have said), or want an incredibly and inhuman preciseness on their mouse. Anyways, personally BT is fast enough for me, and it feels just like a corded Apple mouse. I would recommend the Apple mouse, having 1 button is great, I do sometimes miss the scroll wheel, but not nearly enough to not recommend the mouse.
 
drama queen

KevRC4130 said:
My Apple BT mouse has NEVER lagged, I think most people complaining about BT lag are either drama queens, have not actually used a BT mouse (and going by what others have said), or want an incredibly and inhuman preciseness on their mouse. Anyways, personally BT is fast enough for me, and it feels just like a corded Apple mouse. I would recommend the Apple mouse, having 1 button is great, I do sometimes miss the scroll wheel, but not nearly enough to not recommend the mouse.
Click to expand...

Drivers may be the issue here. I have an Apple BT mouse, and cannot detect any appreciable lag. However, I am hooked on the multibutton mouse (not just right click, but since I have become accustomed to mouse-driven expose I cannot live without it). I bought a MS BT mouse, and there IS a definate lag with this mouse (using internal bluetooth). I ended up replacing it with the logitech 1000 for my work rig (fantastic by the way), but this is NOT an elegant solution for either the iMac or a powerbook. I empathize with the author of this post, because I too would love to have a multi-button BT mouse with no lag.

Anyone with comparisons between MS BT, MX 900 and the Apple BT mouse with respect to responsiveness? I can't help but wonder how the MS and logitech mouse would perform with Mac-specific drivers....
 
Westside guy said:
I have the Microsoft BT mouse. I like it, but I'm still looking for the perfect BT mouse as well. 🙂 Main drawback is there's no on/off switch, and it's a touch bigger than I'd ideally prefer. Having five buttons is nice though.
Click to expand...

The Microsoft BT mouse is nice, has a great feel, although tracking could be a little better, it does really drain batteries though ...

noel4r said:
how much battery power does bluetooth consume anyway?
Click to expand...

A lot, on a mac that I spend 7-some hours a day working on I had to change the batteries every 3 weeks or so.
 
dornoforpyros said:
Ok folks so I'm about to pull the trigger on the 14" iBook(just gotta wait for one more cheque to clear horray!).

I think I've decided I may as well drop the extra $60 and get blue tooth installed specifically for the purpose of getting a wireless mouse. However the one button apple mouse will not cut it. I'm coming from a PC world and I'm hopelessly addicted to my 2 buttons and scroll wheel.

I know alot of people are partial to http://www.macmice.com/ but I've read some less than stellar reviews of the mice(no click on the scroll, very easy to inadvertanly click both buttons).

So I'm wondering if anyone's found a better BT mouse yet? I'm not overly concerned with matching the look of the iBook at all. In fact I'll even use a microsoft mouse if it turns out to the right one for the job.

So lil help anyone?
Click to expand...


Apple Mouse.
 
The only time I notice any "lag" with my MS Bluetooth mouse is when it's been idle for a few minutes - all BT mice go into a lower power mode after a fairly short period of inactivity, in order to save battery power. There's a slight pause between the time you move the previously-inactive mouse and when the cursor starts responding again. I have not noticed any sort of lag whatsoever during active use.

But speaking of the power-back-up lag: I have noticed this has gotten noticably shorter since the Apple BT upgrade of a week or two ago. So at least part of this lag is the fault of the computer rather than the mouse, which makes sense.
 
unfaded said:
Yes. The only wireless mouse without a delay is the Logitech MX 1000, which is certainly not bluetooth. Bluetooth mice will always see lag - bluetooth itself is just not fast enough.
Click to expand...

😕 This is not true.
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=1070105#post1070105

Logitech's BT mice lag pretty badly BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT COMPATIBLE WITH MAC OS X. From the others, assuming no non-Wifi 2.4gHz presence you can assume all wireless mice are roughly equally laggy, whether they are RF or BT.

Certainly the MX1000 has the same RF part as the MX700, and so it has no less latency; if anything the increased resolution might increase latency (more data over the same data capacity transport) but I wouldn't think that it could saturate the RF connection.

FPS gamers sometimes prefer wired mice, but, well read the above post. It should answer all your questions regarding latency and game-suitability.

Remember, Wifi and bluetooth are designed to coexist in the 2.4 gHz frequency, so don't worry about using both.

EDIT: The power-up slowdown is (a) not an issue for gaming (how the hell is your mouse powering down? you shouldn't stop moving that long!) (b) is mouse-specific; it has NOTHING to do with BT vs RF

EDIT: BT=bluetooth, RF=proprietary radio frequency (with attendant dongle)
-RS
 
mpw said:
I had an iBook without internal BT the usb dongle that came with the mouse, a MS BT mouse, only worked plugged directly to the iBook not from the keyboard and did serve my SE T610 for iSync.

My usb dongle from Belkin would do both the mouse and the phone from either usb on the iBook or keyboard and connected to the mouse quicker than MS's own dongle.

Now I have a internal BT in my iMac and the BT connection to the mouse keeps dropping out every few minutes and is a pain in the arse to reconnect. I plan to try moving my desktop about so the phone(DECT wireless) isn't right next to the PC but failing that it'll be back to a wired mouse and a black mark against Apple's internal BT.

MS's BT mouse is great when it's working.
Click to expand...

It wasn't the phone. A new set of batteries cured the dropping out. The 'old' set had only been in a couple of weeks so were either faulty or the new internal BT makes the mouse try harder?
 
solaris said:
Apple BlueTooth Mouse is just perfect.
No need to look any further! 😛
Click to expand...

Perfect...unless you prefer more than one button! Ever used exposé with a multi-button mouse? It's a dream to use.
 
mpw said:
Perfect...unless you prefer more than one button! Ever used exposé with a multi-button mouse? It's a dream to use.
Click to expand...

I could probably learn to use a one-button mouse... but I really can't live without a scroll wheel. 😀

Funny thing, though, until I started using a mouse with a scroll wheel, I couldn't imagine why people got so excited about them. "Bah! It's a silly gimmick!" 😉
 
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