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Review: Logitech MX900 (englisch)Package Contents:Users Manual Software CD Base station (for recharging witch integrated Bluetooth module) Mouse MX900 Two 1800mAh AA rechargeable batteries Price: 79 Euro at Zimmermann Elektronik in Darmstadt/Germany Date of purchase: March 13th 2004 Pictures und Screenshots: Pictures of mouse and base station Screenshots of the software General aspects about the mouse: The mouse has a very elegant design and looks very good. It also fits very well into my hand. The design is very similar to the one of the MX700, the only difference is a slightly different color (the MX900 is more grayish) and the Bluetooth logo on the back of the mouse. The MX900 is not too heavy. It has about the same weight as my old Logitech Mouse Man Cordless. The first thing I noticed is the excellent sliding of the mouse. It moves very easy, which was a little confusing for me in the beginning. But now I am used to it and like it much. My old mice now feel like they are moving too sluggish. I cannot really recommend the mouse to lefthanders. It is nearly symmetrical, but you cannot reach the back/forward buttons, when you have the mouse in your left hand. If you don't need them anyway or find a way to press them with your little finger, you can use the MX900 also as a left-handed person. Buttons: All of the eight buttons are quite easy to access. You can press the forward/back buttons very easily with your thumb. The small button below and above the scroll wheel can be pressed without difficulty with your index finger. A little bit harder is the button, which is central on top of the mouse. There are two ways you can press it. First, you can pull your index finger back and press the button with your fingertip. This methods works, but isn't very comfortable. I prefer to use the second method: Leave the index finger where it is anyway and press the button with the upper limb of the index finger. This works quite easy and is very comfortable, since you don't have to move the finger. The left and right mouse buttons have a nice clicking sound and are of course very easy to press. Moreover you can press the scroll wheel too and use it as a button. It is a little bit easier to press than the mouse wheel on my Mouse Man Cordless. The wheel is deeper inside the mouse, a little bit flatter and you need less force to press it. Using the MX900 with Windows XP: Software: If you like you can even use the mouse without installing a driver. You need the Logitech SetPoint Software to use the base station as a Bluetooth module for other Bluetooth devices and to configure the buttons of the mouse. The base station works fine with my other Bluetooth devices. It works like a regular Bluetooth USB module. The mouse software is not as nerving as other mouse drivers I have seen from Logitech so far. I don't install any crap in my task bar and there are no stupid nerving assistant, which always pop up, when I don't need them. The software is quite compact and allows you to configure the buttons and some other options of the mouse like the acceleration. Have a look at the screenshots, to see what else you can configure with the Logitech software. The software also displays the current battery level. Connecting the mouse: Connecting the mouse with a PC is quite easy. You plug in the base station into a USB port of your PC. Then you press the connect buttons of mouse and station. The connecting procedure is very similar to the other non Bluetooth cordless mice, but it works slightly better. Connecting is faster and more reliable than on my old Mouse Man Cordless. It always works on the first attempt. One important thing to notice is that you connect the mouse to its station and not to its PC. You can simply plug the station in a different computer and the mouse without having to reconnect it. This also works if you plug the mouse in a switchable USB hub or a KVM switch. It seems like the base station is emulation a regular USB mouse when the MX900 is connected to it. Precision using with Windows XP: The mouse is absolute precise. It is really excellent. It feels much more precise than the old Mouse Man Cordless. I used the software Mouse Rate Checker to do a comparison between the two mice. Mouse Rate Checker is simple software that measures the update frequency of your mouse using a very simple method. It simply checks how often the windows cursor moved to a new position. To measure the frequency you have to move the mouse in a window of Mouse Rate Checker. First I test the Mouse Man Cordless. No matter how fast I move the mouse I get a rate of 50 Hz. This seems to be the update frequency of that mouse. Next, I tested my blue optical Logitech Pilot Wheel Mouse with a cord. It gets a constant reading of 124 Hz. Now let's test the new MX900. If I move the mouse relatively slow in the window I get a value around 120 Hz. If I move a little bit faster I can even reach 200 Hz. My top score is 390 Hz. It is now obvious, that the MX900 has a much higher update rate than my old mice. The mouse is always ready to be used. If I wake the PC from sleep mode the mouse is immediately ready to be used. I never have to wait for the mouse to wake up. If you haven't moved the mouse for a very long time, there is a very small delay in the movement of the mouse. It takes maybe half a second for the mouse to register the movement. I think this effect has much more to do with the optical sensor than with Bluetooth. Using the MX900 with OS X: Connecting the mouse: You use the Bluetooth Assistant to pair the mouse with your Macintosh. I connected the mouse to the internal Bluetooth module of my PowerBook 12". Pairing is a very easy and fast procedure: First select "Set Up new Device", press two times "continue" and than press the connect button of the mouse (you don't have to hold it). Press again two times "continue" and the mouse is paired. The whole procedure can be done in less than ten seconds. To use the mouse on a Mac you don't have to use the Logitech base station. But if you like you can use it. It works very similar like on the PC, with the big difference, that I couldn't use the station as a Bluetooth module. The station emulates a USB mouse, which you can use right after plugging the station into the Mac. I prefer to use the MX900 with the internal Bluetooth module of my PowerBook 12" and leave the station connected to my PC, where it is mainly used as a Bluetooth module and recharging station for the mouse. If I like I can switch the mouse in less than ten seconds between the two computers. It is a really nice mouse and I already considered buying a second one for my PC. Configuration of the buttons: Mac OS X recognizes the mouse as a HID (Human Interface Device) device. Most of the buttons (the left and right mouse button, the scroll, and the buttons above and under the wheel) work out of the box without configuring anything or using a driver. Now there are three buttons unused, which can configure to use them for Expose. So if you like you can use the mouse without any additional software and make use of all the buttons. If you like to use a different configuration, you can completely configure the buttons using the Game Pad Companion. It allows you to configure any HID device like the MX900. I used it to make the forward/back buttons work in the browser and in most other applications like the finder. Moreover, I configured the mouse wheel button to press enter, which is also very comfortable. Precision using with Mac OS X: My first impression was very bad. The mouse felt very strange. It took a while until I found the reasons for that feeling. One reason was the very good sliding of the mouse. I get used to this very fast. The second problem is the extreme low "native" acceleration of the mouse. My friend Guido gave me the hint to use the software MouseZoom to set the acceleration to a higher value. I had to double the acceleration from 1.7 (Apple standard) to 3.4. With this new setting the mouse feels absolute precise. I would say there is now difference in the precision compared to the precision under windows. More properties of the mouse using it with OS X: You cannot see the battery level of the mouse using Mac OS X. There seems to be no standard procedure to get the battery level from the mouse. This is no big problem. The rechargeable batteries last for about four days and the mouse warns you with a orange LED on the top, if the batteries are close to their end. Charging the mouse every two or three days is absolute no problem for me. A full charge takes maybe two or three hours. If you like you can even use the mouse to wake the computer from sleep state. If you don't like this behavior you can turn it of in the Bluetooth settings of Mac OS X. Problems with other cordless devices: I did some intensive testing and didn't have any problems with other cordless devices. One test was to copy some big files with 3 MB/s over AirPort Extreme and synchronizing my Sony Ericsson T68i using Bluetooth with my PowerBook at the same time. The mouse was still absolute precise and the transfer of the data didn't get any slower, when I move the mouse. There are no problems with my other cordless mouse or with cordless DECT phone. Conclusion: The MX900 is a very nice mouse. You can use it with Mac OS X without any limitations. You don't need drivers from Logitech to make full use of the mouse. With drivers from Logitech you wouldn't need MouseZoom and Game Pad Companion. I can really recommend buying the mouse. |