[Chris Bucher]

I bought The Mouse BT a few months ago. I thought the build quality was okay, nothing wrong with it, but I wasn't "wowed". I thought it was also a little smaller than the logitech that I was used to. I have always had powerbooks so I have never really used the apple mouse and compare size wise.

I had no problem going through the install and it seemed okay, but the mouse does this intermittent disconnect thing. It may go a couple hours without a hitch and then, it just disconnects. wait 5 seconds--okay, give it a minute-- disconnect , 5 more seconds, works for 30 seconds disconnects, works for 30 minutes disconnect--you get the picture--totally random.

I have begun the return process after doing EVERYTHING possible to make this thing work. I am not sure whether or not this is a problem with this unit or something else, but I feel as though I have already gone the extra mile to make sure this is a defective unit. Macmice gave me the offer of sending them a new one or refunding my money--I am going to get the logitech 900. Macmice support has been great, I just am unwilling to go through this with a mouse I am lukewarm about.

BTW--from the above post--I have a friend who has the MS intellimouse and loves it. I really had a hard time deciding what other mouse I should get, and the fact that his MS intellimouse was so great really made me want to think about it, but there were just enough other negative reviews at places like cnet and such that I went with the 900.

[bgotori]

FWIW, I have an FYI for the noob's out there (like me)....

The Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer BT does NOT work with Mac.

Reckon I'll be visiting CompUSA again soon....


I've been using a MicroSoft BT mouse never had a problem other than battery life... This is with 10.3.4-10.3.7 other than waking sometimes always connects and never drops for me.


Have Great Holiday's!!!

Brad

[Luca Rescigno]

bgtori, you got a double post across pages! Nice!

[bgotori]

Hey Luca Rescigno

Not sure what you mean??? But if I did something wrong Sorry!!!


Have Great Holiday's!!!

Brad

[Chris Bucher]

this is so much better than TheMouseBT. No disconnect problems in a couple of hours of use. very well put together, I don't notice it being heavier, but definitely more solid. It is a little slow, but a snap to install--although I really would like to figure out some way to use the other buttons for like photoshop and stuff. Thanks to everyone else on this board for their input that helped me to select this model, and thanks to the people at MacMice whose service of their product was awesome! I wanted to love theMouseBT, but just couldn't live with it.

[USNA91]

Originally posted by bgotori:

I've been using a MicroSoft BT mouse never had a problem other than battery life... This is with 10.3.4-10.3.7 other than waking sometimes always connects and never drops for me.

Well, my PB detected the mouse, but that was it. When it tried to pair up with it (whatever that means) nothing happened.

Was I too impatient, or did I need to download something, or what? I really like the MS BT mouse, and I'd hate to think I blew it by being impatient (wouldn't be the first time).

[bgotori]

Hey USNA91

What kind of PowerBook do you have??? I've got a Pismo 400 and using a Dlink Bluetooth USB adapter. Mine worked fine from day One. As far as setting it up, it Paired up first time.

I Pair-up by pushing the Mouse sink button, then starting the PowerBook Pairing, I hold the Mouse Pairing(Sinking)button for about 10 sec. after I start the PowerBook setup. Works Great. I've been told that 4sec. is all you need, but I'm old sooo...hahaha

Oh also... I have the First version of the MicroSoft bluetooth mouse, the one that lots of people had problems with... But mine has alway work Great... Finally Got Luck...hahaha


Have Great Holiday's!!!

Brad

[AKcrab]

Originally posted by danger_boy_13:
I have the MouseBT (for about a week) and have yet to have a problem. When you wake from sleep, you click the mouse button (after waking) and it takes a few seconds to connect, but I haven't had to manually connect it.

Thank you thank you thank you. I knew I shouldn't have to go through the setup each time.

[USNA91]

Originally posted by bgotori:
Hey USNA91

What kind of PowerBook do you have??? I've got a Pismo 400 and using a Dlink Bluetooth USB adapter. Mine worked fine from day One. As far as setting it up, it Paired up first time.

I Pair-up by pushing the Mouse sink button, then starting the PowerBook Pairing, I hold the Mouse Pairing(Sinking)button for about 10 sec. after I start the PowerBook setup. Works Great. I've been told that 4sec. is all you need, but I'm old sooo...hahaha

Oh also... I have the First version of the MicroSoft bluetooth mouse, the one that lots of people had problems with... But mine has alway work Great... Finally Got Luck...hahaha


Have Great Holiday's!!!

Brad

I've got a G4 15 aluminum loaded. Maybe I didn't hold the synch button long enough. I know nothing about bluetooth.

[jtwiskowski]

Works fine for me ... on a PowerMac G5 and a PowerBook 12-inch.

Pair it up correctly?

You can NOT use the Microsoft BT adapter. however.
I used Apple's BTO built-in BlueTooth adapters.

Originally posted by USNA91:
FWIW, I have an FYI for the noob's out there (like me)....

The Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer BT does NOT work with Mac.

Reckon I'll be visiting CompUSA again soon....

[BenRoethig]

Originally posted by dennisbolt:
Update: I emailed consumer service, and they were fast and efficient. They emailed back directing me to their FAQ page and making sure I had downloaded and installed the newest firmware and BT software-which I did.

Still did not work and I replied back.

They sent me an email (which is same as one I read about on the apple discussionboards on this topic.)

QUOTING: "Hello,

Thank you for your response and we will refund you for your MouseBT purchase. Our customer service staff will begin the refund process today. The refund process may take 3-5 business days. Please check with your bank or credit card company to verify your refund. No need to return the MouseBT - no RMA's will be issued. We appreciate you going the "extra mile" and apologize for any inconvenience you might have experienced.

Kind regards,"

So it sounds like they must have a lot of problmes with this for them to refund and not have me send it back?? I appreciate them doing that and feel sorry for them to waste all these mice. Plus i feel dissapointed that a real nice product doesn't work right YET.

Without the grip points it feels less "tight and solid" as the Apple mouse. The plastic feels fractionably more thin and "snappy" rather than the rich and thick acrylic of the Apple product. But if it had worked I would have loved it.

It's standard practice from what I understand. They can't fix them, so they;d rather you toss it in the trash than going through a return process so they can throw it in the trash.

[PurpleGiant]

Originally posted by BenRoethig:
It's standard practice from what I understand. They can't fix them, so they;d rather you toss it in the trash than going through a return process so they can throw it in the trash.

Apple sent me a broken keyboard once. Rang up and asked for another one, and a return envelope to send this back in. They just said to keep it. Turns out I fixed the keyboard after they sent a new one, so then I had two new keyboards




...sold the other on eBay for 90% of retail price

[active]

The Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer BT does NOT work with Mac.

Yes it does, I've used it with my G5 (I normally use that mouse with my PC)! Ok, not all the buttons work (ie. the navigation buttons at the side of the mouse), but the mouse and scroll wheel all work without problems.

Indeed, the reason I moved to that mouse...was due to my MacMice BT mouse performing erratically on my G5. It would jerk all over the place, in use.

However, I went back to my Bluetooth MacMice mouse and it now performs correctly, without problems. I didn't do a thing, apart from shut it down for a few days. Bizarre.

Chris.

[USNA91]

Well, HELL! WTF was I doing wrong then?

Hmmmm..... Maybe I'll try it again. We'll see, and I'll post the results if I do.

I really like the mouse because it is comfortable in my hand.

[Simon]

TheMouseBT vs. Logitech MX900

After reading this thread and the BareFeats page on BT mice I decided to get a BT mouse myself. Initially I bought a TheMouseBT model. It seemed to look a lot like Apple's mouse which is gorgeous but just lacks the scroll wheel and additional buttons.

TheMouseBT came and it worked right out of the box - no drivers needed, great! It indeed looks a lot like Apple's mouse, but it lacks an important detail: the two tabbed areas on the side allowing you to pick up the mouse. And TheMouseBT has a rather crappy clicking mechanism - much worse than Apple's. Sometimes you get a click when you don't want one, sometimes you have to press a lot harder to get anything at all. It's not very precise either. At certain times it jerks around erratically, other times you have to navigate very carefully to really get the mouse where you want it. And this is not on a glass table or something - I use a non-reflecting mouse pad and have the newest BT drivers installed. It felt a bit flimsy. It's much more plastic and less solid feeling than Apple's. It needs a click to wake up which is rather annoying because normally I don't first click, but move a mouse. What I also dislike is the fact that its scroll wheel is smooth and doesn't give any feedback. I prefer to feel the roll of the wheel because it tells me if and how fast I'm scrolling. With TheMouseBT the scroll wheel feels very smooth, but OTOH I sometimes almost can't feel if I am really scrolling or just rubbing the scroll wheel - there is simply no feedback. Smooth might sound nice, but in reality it sucks. When the mouse sits still on the table it tends to blink its red LED rather nervously, but it does at least sleep. But when the included batteries gave up a weak after I had bought the mouse, I kind of lost hope for this mouse. Of course the batteries could have been old or bad or whatever, but a I'd expect batteries to do a lot better. So, I figured I'd get another BT mouse to try out.

Enter, the Logitech MX900 BT. It doesn't look like Apple's mouse at all unfortunately, but it looks OK. It doesn't say it supports the Mac, but it works w/o drivers just fine and Expos� can map to any of the 8 buttons found on the mouse. It fits my hand very well (I have a large hand, Apple's mouse is the smallest I would use) and it navigates very precisely. The mouse comes with a cradle which can act as a BT hub (on a PC I guess) or just as a charger, although unfortunately the hub doesn't draw charging power from the USB bus, but from an additional AC adapter that has to be plugged into the cradle's USB cable. Not very nice, but it works - and you don't have to waste a USB port on a Mac, since plugging the cradle into power is all a Mac user will need. In the cradle the mouse charges and lets you know by blinking its LED. When you take it out of the cradle, the mouse reconnects very quickly and works w/o first clicking. It's rather heavy which makes it run well and gives it a solid feel. I really like it. It certainly feels better and is more precise than TheMouseBT. Unfortunately, like TheMouseBT, the MX900 also can't show its battery state through OS X's BT system pref the way the Apple Mouse can. Since the MX900 is rechargeable, I guess it isn't that bad however.

Bottom line: Both mice cost roughly the same, but while TheMouseBT may look more like an Apple mouse, the Logitech MX900 beats it in every task: it feels better, gives more feedback, navigates more precisely, is rechargeable and it offers more funtionality. The Logitech MX900 is the clear winner. I would recommend the MX900 to any Mac user looking for a normal-sized BT mouse with more functionality than Apple's BT mouse.

[badtz]

I would if apple [or any other company] will start shifting away from battery-operated BT mouses .....


the only other solution right now is the cradle, which is ugly and adds clutter to the desktop.


batteries = $$$$$$ wasted away on a continuous basis


any signs of new technology coming that will eliminate these two?

maybe an integrated battery in the mouse, and there can be a usb cord that comes out of the mouse to charge it up?

[prokrast]

See: http://www.iogear.com/main.php?loc=product&Item=GME225B
Its got the USB cable for charging. Or replace the batteries. Or just use it while plugged in. I've got it, seems to work fairly well. A little smaller than I would've like for day-to-day use, but fantastic for traveling.

Originally posted by badtz:
I would if apple [or any other company] will start shifting away from battery-operated BT mouses .....


the only other solution right now is the cradle, which is ugly and adds clutter to the desktop.


batteries = $$$$$$ wasted away on a continuous basis


any signs of new technology coming that will eliminate these two?

maybe an integrated battery in the mouse, and there can be a usb cord that comes out of the mouse to charge it up?

[badtz]

^ one tiny bad thing about it is that the USB cable is not retractable from the mouse.

Thus, you have to carry/remember to carry, a USB cord w/the mouse


otherwise, that idea would be perfect! Use a [retractable] USB cord to power the battery in the mouse!