Summary:

MacMice looks like they solved the problems of most bluetooth mice, and put the answer in a beautiful, sleek, tiny package. Unfortunately, the usability is poor. I did not get the keyboard, so I'm commenting on the mouse only.



Design:

The MacMice Mouse BT is beautiful, it borrows from the elegant design of the Apple mouse, but adds features that everyone wants. It's wireless, it has a right mouse button, without looking like it has one, and it has a (smooth) scroll wheel. It also claims to solve the "Connection Lost" problem that other bluetooth mice have, and have better battery life. It looks and feels great.


Usability:

Unfortunately I can't use this mouse. For one thing, I'm not a fan of the smooth scrolling (which means the scroller doesn't "click" into different positions as you scroll), but I can see that might be a matter of personal preference.

The most glaring problem is that the mouse pointer lags your mouse movement! Move the mouse in a circle - watch the pointer catch up with you! I emailed MacMice about this problem, and they did not acknowledge that there was a problem, but said I could send it back to my retailer (it was too late unfortunately) if I was not satisfied. I thought perhaps I got a bad one - but a friend got one and experienced the same problem; I have to conclude that this is up to spec. If I hadn't used a different bluetooth mouse that worked well, I might be convinced that this is just an artifact of bluetooth technology - but I have a Belkin mouse, so I know better. This lag is what makes it singularly unusable.


Comparison with other bluetooth mice:

I've tried three other bluetooth mice, two by Belkin, and one by Apple. Any of those are better in the most important ways, and worse in others.


Apple:

Once you get into the multiple button and scrollwheel mouse mode, the Apple mouse won't satisfy (although they've just released the "Mighty Mouse" -surely they'll have a bluetooth version soon).


Belkin:

The two Belkin mice worked nearly flawlessly, but had two problems - if you haven't used it in a couple of minutes, it will take a little while to wake up (a problem the MacMice mouse promised to fix). Secondly, the battery life is a bit poor.



Recommendation:

Avoid this mouse. Perhaps they can fix the problems with a future firmware update, but I haven't seen it yet, and I've been waiting a while. It's good looks and sleek design are not enough. If only Belkin could put their mouse in this package, I would be happy.


Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 60