ValuMouse, with added scroll! (Kensington Valumouse Scroll)

Member Name: richard_richard

Product:	Kensington Valumouse Scroll
Date:	12/01/05 (144 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, Reliable, Has scroll wheel

Disadvantages: A bit clunky in use

Pre-ramble
This is a review of the cheap but cheerful Kensington ValuMouse with Scroll wheel. The ValuMouse has been around for a while, but this latest version has been enhanced with the addition of a scroll wheel.

This Kensington ValuMouse is priced around £10 so represents good value for money.

The mouse comes with an instruction manual and a floppy disk which contain drivers to run the scroll wheel in Windows 95.


Specs
As per the standard ValuMouse, this mouse is controlled by a ball mechanism.

It has two buttons, left and right, but unlike the standard ValuMouse, sitting in the middle of the two buttons is a scroll wheel. This is obviously a handy addition!

The mouse has a reasonably long cord attached to it, as with the standard ValuMouse. However, what is different about the cord on this mouse is that it features an adapter to allow the use of either the PS / 2 socket, or the USB connection on your computer.

Compatibility wise, this mouse can be used in Windows 95 or NT with the PS / 2 socket and in Windows 98, 2000 or XP with the USB connection.

The mouse is beige in colour, but I reckon you had guessed that already?!!


In Use
If you are using Windows 95, you will need to use the software drivers supplied on the floppy disk in order to use the scroll wheel on the mouse. If you are using a later version of Windows, then the operating system should detect the scroll wheel on the mouse and use its own drivers to support it.

For my test I was using Windows 2000 and encountered no problems with using the mouse and scroll wheel on this operating system.

Kensington supply an instruction manual with this mouse, which is quite helpful and explains the features and compatibility of the mouse. There are only 8 pages in English in the manual, but there is enough in there to help most people out I would think!

As with the standard ValuMouse, the feel of the mouse overall is solid, if a little clunky when moving it around on the mouse pad. The mouse is reasonably responsive to your movements.

The scroll wheel on this mouse is rather large and feels quite clicky when you turn it, but does the job and is quite responsive. As this is a budget mouse, I would say that the overall feel of the scroll wheel is quite acceptable.

The mouse is feels pretty well put together and the impression you get is that of a chunky and quite robust piece of equipment.

In terms of reliability, Kensington offer a 5 year guarantee with this mouse, which I reckon is a pretty good offer, considering the low price. I would therefore expect that this ValuMouse should stand up to the odd knock here and there and still perform reliably for a number of years.


Conclusion
I would recommend this mouse to anybody on a tight budget that is looking for a decent quality and affordable mouse.

This mouse scores highly over the standard ValuMouse as it has the addition of the scroll wheel. So if you can get past the slightly clunky feel to it, you will have a cheap and reliable little mouse!

Thanks for reading!

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