While the goal of most people who travel with their notebooks is to keep the weight and number of items they carry to a bare minimum, it often makes sense to bring along a mouse. Every notebook has some sort of mechanism for controlling the cursor but if you have to spend a lot of time pointing and clicking than it pays to lug a mouse around with you. The good news is that companies have been able to scale down their mice in order for just such a scenario.
There are currently a number of excellent portable mice on the market so it’s not immediately clear what Lenovo has to offer that isn’t already out there. That said, if you’re getting a ThinkPad, it might be pretty cool to get the matching mouse, especially if you believe in the design philosophy of the ThinkPad and would like your accessories to reflect that (or you just want to bundle your purchases together). Anyway you look at it, the ThinkPad Bluetooth Laser Mouse is designed to be a simple, effective, and highly portable mouse that is perfectly paired with any notebook.
The mouse has two very striking characteristics to it–it is small (about 3.5×2×1″) and it has no dongle. Being a Bluetooth product, no USB dongle is necessary because most notebooks have Bluetooth built in. This cuts down on the cost and means one less part to lose, something which is crucial when traveling. Plus, if you use a tiny device, it means you won’t have to have a large dongle sticking out of its side.
The mouse is a three button model with tilt wheel that allows for four-way scrolling. It is covered in a soft-touch material that is a similar to that found on the palm rest of the X300 but is small enough that you barely touch it when in use. The only other features on the mouse are the laser sensor, an on/off switch, a Bluetooth connection button, and a release for the battery compartment. The batteries (two standard AA) are stored inside the mouse and can be swapped in seconds. They are not rechargeable, but thanks to power management features the mouse should last about four months on a single pair.
Connecting the Bluetooth mouse to your notebook is no problem and if you have had any experience with Bluetooth devices you should have no problems with this. Lenovo includes a drivers CD to facilitate the process which we used before the setup and the notebooks we tested on all recognized the mouse in seconds. Once connected the mouse is ready to go. Performance is solid–the laser sensor has no problem with a variety of different surfaces, including wood grains and a glossy book cover. Lenovo does not say anything about the dpi setting, but it seems to be reasonably high as the mouse could get across a 1920×1200 display quickly. The buttons have very clean precise clicks to them and even the third button (the scroll wheel) works well in this respect. The side to side scrolling is present, but not particularly useful (just like normal) and the scrolling action is ratcheted and accurate enough to get by, but not the best out there.
Overall, the ThinkPad Bluetooth Laser Mouse does not revolutionize the input device market, but it’s a mouse that is easy to get from place to place and it does its job well. It, disappointingly, does not include a carrying case, but it is sturdy enough to be thrown in your travel bag along with everything else. The real beauty of this mouse is that it is designed for use on the road, which is why there is no dongle and why it uses AA batteries (which can be purchased almost anywhere). It currently sells for about $40-50 which means it isn’t the cheapest option out there, but it could be a good pick up given just how many devices now use Bluetooth.
