Not your everyday Mickey (Logitech MX 700)

Member Name: isvikthere

Product:	Logitech MX 700
Date:	08/05/03 (930 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: sleek modern design, balless, cordless, with battery recharger stand, latest optical technology

Disadvantages: expensive, NOT ambidextrous (righthanders only), mouse is ALWAYS active

This review has been long time overdue because I had other priorities, so although it is several weeks now since I bought this mouse I simply hadn't come round to unpacking and really using it.

This time I won't bore you at all with the technical details, I invite all those of who can't live without them just to pay a visit to the Logitech site :
(http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm?countryid=1 8&languageid=1).

For those of you that don't know the company, Logitech, together with Microsoft, are the two top dogs when it comes down to mice and keyboards.

THE PRICE
Also I have to confess that I bought this thing purely on impulse after having read many favourable reviews of it and thinking that maybe it would help to enhance my gameplay(ahum). Because this is without a shadow of a doubt an expensive "PC peripheral", at roughly 45 £ for this litle rodent I could have bought a whole household of plain mice. The MX700 as I will call it for now on, is currently King of the Hill in Mouseland. As it is the top model in Logitech's MX line it's obviously sold at a top price.

THE TECHNOLOGY
First a word on optical mice : when optical mice (an optical mouse being a mouse without a roller ball underneath) first came to be certain people, gamers to be more specific, weren't too happy with this first generation as the infrared eye and the other hardware sometimes had trouble translating quick movement, which in fast action games caused bad response and which was of course lethal for your gameplay.

However this MX generation of Logitech mice does away with all that. It now has dual optical technology that is as good and better than any ball mouse ever was or will be because you'll never get stuck again with encrusted rollers.

THE PACKAGE
What makes this mouse even more expensive than the MX500 and the physically smaller MX300, which basically all share the same advanced opti
cal technology, is the fact that not only it is balless and cordless but also that it comes with its own recharger stand. This recharger stand doubles as the radio communication station between mouse and PC. Here also Logitech has made enormous strides forward as before no gamer would touch a radio-controlled mouse which in previous generations also caused a lot of bad response. None of that here any more as no lag can be noticed using the MX700. The mouse basestation can be connected to the PC both through USB or the older PS2 (an USB to PS2 adapter is included). It takes its power via an adapter plugged in the mains with a power cord plugged into the PS2/USB connector. Further included in the package are two high capacity (1700mAh) AA-type rechargeable Nimh batteries (with no memory effect), a drivers CD and a small manual.

WHAT IS IT LIKE ?
Its looks are very much up-to-date with a handsome and classy metallic gray and darkblue colour mixture, the base station has the exact same colours, which makes for a slick setup. Unlike the top-line of Microsoft optical mice it doesn't have the big red taillight which makes it in my view a lot more discrete. I'm sure there are people who find the big bright stoplight on the Microsoft opticals snazzy so they won't be tempted by the plainer looking Logitech MX mice then.

The MX700 has one clickable scroll wheel on top in between the familiar leftclick and rightclick big buttons, central (one above and two under the mousewheel) there are three smaller buttons. On the lefthandside, just above where you'd rest your thumb there are two more buttons, so this total of eight configurable buttons should satisfy everyone that needs to access things quickly. I'm pretty sure that it will take me some time to find all of them blindly.

On the underside of the mouse there is the bright red light of the optical eyes and a small button to bring the mouse on-line, marked "connect". A
similar button is to be found on teh front of the basestation. When resting/charging in the station, a green LED on the mousetop lights up that blinks when the mouse is charging or emits a steady green light when the mouse is fully charged. When the beastie feels it needs a rest, it indicates its batteries running low by the very same LED on its top, this time blinking in red. This MX700 isn't ambidextrous because it is designed to fit snugly in the palm of righthanders only.

Just because it's balless doesn't mean this mouse hasn't got balls, on the contrary it is extremely responsive to every movement, unfortunately I haven't yet managed to define the ideal sensitivity for my use. I'm sure this is a trial and error thing until I will find out what exact sensitivity setting suits me best. However the Logitech software coming with the device and which is called Mouseware allows you to define special uses for all eight buttons in all flavours of the Windows operating system, and to do all kinds of adjustments.

The two main big buttons and the scroll wheel need no specific utility to be recognised because they work right out of the box, without installing any of the Mouseware software, so I suppose that basic functionality will be assured with other OSes (MacOS, Linux) as well. Just after you have inserted and charged the batteries don't forget to push the connect buttons both on the base unit and on the mouse itself ! Compared to my previous mouse, the A4tech mouse (http://www.a4tech.com.tw/a4techenglish/wireless-i ndex.htm)
which cost 17 £ (or 25 euro) at the time, I find the improvement not that spectacular. The A4Tech is also cordless and communicates with its base station through an infrared port, a technology which has the disadvantage that the mouse always has to keep its basestation in sight. It does however still have a rollerball underneath but took, surprisingly, very litle or hardly any cleaning of its inte
rnals. The A4Tech operates with two small AAA-type batteries which were included but not of the rechargeable type so I replaced them over time.

In the MX700's defense, which can be placed up to 10 feet away from and out of sight of its base station, I've got to say that I haven't completely discovered the ideal settings yet whilst for the A4Tech which served me faithfully for over two years I had after long testing and trying managed to tune it to my liking. As said, with the MX700 two large capacity rechargeable AA-type batteries and a charger are included and after unpacking them and inserting them in the mouse the batteries took surprisingly litle time to reach full charge in the base station, I'm speaking of less than 2 hours here.

So if you've got the cash, can no longer be fussed with cleaning ball and rollers or a mouse cable getting tangled on your desk, need lots of quick access buttons right under your fingers and are hooked up on the latest infrared technology, give this MX700 a shot. If ever you're a huge fan of Logitech's new optical MX technology but can still live with a mouse cable go for the cheaper MX500 (same look as the MX700 but with cable) or the smaller MX300 (physically smaller, with cable and less buttons to play with).

Today I just discovered one annoying feature : If you rest the mouse in its charger stand but the charger isn't under tension - I like my workstations and the rest of the computer equipment when not in use to be cut off from the mains completely - the optical eye keeps emitting red light, which means that the mouse is never completely shut off. If ever you're not working on your computer for a longer time the mouse batteries will then drain completely. So I suppose Logitech designed this thinking the mouse chargerstand/basestation should be kept under tension at all times, not that flexible in my view.

However for now I can't think of any other featu
re I would like to see on a mouse that this Logitech MX700 doesn't already have.

Cheers
Vik

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