The Rocketfish Twister Wireless Notebook Mouse - The Ultimate in Portability
Written: May 20 '07 (Updated May 21 '07)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Accurate laser technology, wireless, attractive
Cons: A true notebook mouse, may be too small for some users.
The Bottom Line: If you're looking for a full featured, affordable wireless laser mouse that will fit into any notebook case, the Rocketfish Twister is it.
|
|
|
| nc10's Full Review: Rocketfish Twister Wireless Laser Notebook Mouse R... |
The Rocketfish Twister Wireless Laser Notebook Mouse doesn’t look like your typical notebook mouse. While most “notebook” mice look like their desktop brothers, downsized to fit into a notebook case, the Twister Wireless Laser Mouse looks like it was redesigned from the ground up to meet the needs of notebook owners on the road.
Key features and specs of the Twister include:
2.4 Ghz wireless communication
Mouse powered by two AAA batteries, receiver is USB powered
4 programmable buttons/scrollpad
Easily twists from use mode to low profile storage mode
Win 98 though Vista, Mac compatible
Wireless USB receiver storage slot in the mouse
The Rocketfish Twister is available for $45, only at Best Buy. Rocketfish is a Best Buy house brand, a brand I wasn’t familiar with until I was offered this mouse for the purpose of reviewing on Epinions. I’ve since searched for and read reviews on several Rocketfish products, and they seem to be getting consistently favorable reports.
Appearances
“Out of the box”, the Twister is shaped like a deck of cards, but slightly smaller, at 3 ¼” long, 2” wide, and ¾” thick. It comes with a padded case, for safe storage in your laptop case or anywhere else. The body is split about 2/3 down from the top. Two AAA batteries (included) are inserted into the bottom section of the mouse, while all of the buttons are located on the top section. While this bottom section is firmly attached to the top, it can be twisted 180 degrees. The twist point is angled, leaving the mouse in an inverted “v” shape when the body is twisted halfway around.
The Twister is attractive, mostly glossy black with silver trim. Unlike recent generation LED optical mice which use a red LED for tracking, you can’t see the laser source in this mouse. To actually use the mouse you Twist the body of the mouse, converting it from travel/storage mode to use mode, according to the manufacturer. This twist rotates the bottom battery compartment 180 degrees, leaving both ends of the mouse touching your desk, but raising the middle, providing the more typical “mouse” shape to support your hand while using the mouse.
On the right side of the mouse, a very small USB wireless receiver is conveniently stored in a springloaded compartment, intuitively labeled “PUSH EJECT”. Ejecting the transmitter turns on the mouse. I’ve plugged the USB transmitter into several laptops and PC’s running both Vista and Win XP, and one Apple iBook, and the mouse was always quickly recognized, and functional.
In between the right and left button on the top of the Twister is a touchpad scroll bar. The scrollbar works like the wheel on most desktop mouse, serving both to scroll through documents and pages, and as a 3rd button when pressed. There is also a button on the left side of the mouse, near your thumb. If you install the optional Rocketfish software, any of the buttons can be given one of over 30 different assignments, though, my favorite, choosing to assign buttons 3 and 4 to move you back or forward in your web browser, aren’t options. (If the Rocketfish software is not running the left side button does move you back in your browser, and the scroll button turns on autoscroll, at least on my computers).
Using the Twister
Like most notebook mice, the Twister is smaller than a standard mouse. It is a bit less comfortable to use than a standard mouse, since its not big enough to support all of most users hands. Most, however, will find it still much more usable than a touchpad. The size is a fair tradeoff, the Twister takes full advantage of its small size with the “twist to store” option. This makes the Twister much easy to store and carry around in any laptop case, or even your pocket. For example, the Microsoft Wireless Notebook Laser Mouse 6000 is 1.5” high, three times as thick as the Twister in its flat storage configuration, yet when the Twister is in its “Mousing” configuration it is only about 3/8” shorter than the Laser mouse 6000, providing a similar feel to the user.
The optional Rocketfish Mouse software provides a wide range of button assignments for the Twister, as well as adjustments for scroll speed, click sensitivity, and pointer control options, and it also monitors and displays battery status, a nice touch. The 4.5mb utility only loads when you’ve connected the USB transmitter to your laptop.
The mouse tracks on every surface I”ve tried, wood, white paper, my laptop’s silver metal handrest area, and even on cloth surfaces like a chair’s armrest. The range is fantastic, I tried it across the room in my den, about 19’, and it still worked flawlessly. The mouse does not need “line of site” to communicate with the USB receiver, it will go around walls, chairs, desktops, etc.
I connected this mouse, a Microsoft wireless desktop laser mouse 5000, and a Microsoft Notebook wireless laser mouse 6000 to my PC at the same time and compared the operation of all three. Each performed nearly equally in all the games and applications I tried. Despite being based on similar wireless technology, no interference between the models was noted.
Conclusion
You’ve got to accept some tradeoffs in a notebook mouse, mostly due to the smaller size needed to fit the needs of travelers. However, no other notebook mouse really takes advantage of those tradeoffs as well as the Rocketfish Twister, while still providing the full feature set expected from a desktop mouse. The padded carrying case, storage mode twist configuration, and small wireless transmitter and storage slot all make the Twister easy for anyone to carry around and use. Its also nice that the Rocketfish Twister looks “high tech”, and you can expect a few people to ask where they can get their own Twister.
The mouse is powered by two AAA batteries, readily available anywhere. Running out of batteries is always a risk for travelers, but the Rocketfish software provides an indication of battery life, and there is a low battery warning LED on the Twister itself. The Twister will still work even if only one battery is installed.
The Twister isn’t perfect. I wish the button assignment software included forward and back options for web browsing. The battery compartment cover seems a little weak to me, but fortunately, I expect most users will go several months between battery changes. The mouse includes a 1 year warranty.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 45
|
|
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.