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$70 Cordless Notebook Mouse with No Scroll Wheel

superfloungmous writes "CoolTechZone.com has reviewed Logitech's latest V500 Cordless Notebook Mouse that uses 2.4GHz wireless technology to transmit signal and has a scroll panel instead of a scroll wheel. The concept behind a scroll wheel is you simply move your finger in up, down, left and right directions to use the function. The mouse has a whopping $70.00 price tag as well. Could this be the end of scroll wheels? Here's a quote from the review, "One of the unique things about the V500 is its scroll panel, and this is the very first mouse to actually use this concept. Throughout our testing, we are nothing but impressed with Logitech's new idea. It worked perfectly, and it's actually better than a scroll wheel in many instances. It looks like the era of scroll wheels is short-lived if Logitech applies the same design to its desktop equivalent products."

9 of 372 comments (clear)

  1. Laptop touchpads have this as well by shailesh17 · · Score: 3, Informative

    A similar scroll pad exists on the synaptics touchpad that comes on compaq's presario R3000 laptops - but just does the up/down movements. It works nice but I still prefer the wheel on standard mice cause it provides better control over speed.

  2. First??? Im not sure about that. by falcon5768 · · Score: 5, Informative
    ummm unless I am mistaken there is already a mouse with a scroll pad.

    http://www.macmall.com/macmall/shop/detail~dpno~46 3024.asp

    been out for at least a year now too.

    --

    "Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."

  3. Kinda like this kensington one then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
  4. Re:Tactile feedback by md81544 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I bought a microsoft cordless mouse last year - and the scroll wheel has no "bumps"! I agree with you - it's an odd sensation not having them there. But you do get used to it. It's annoying though when you're playing Counterstrike and you use the scrollwheel to select weapons - you have to be careful not to overshoot the one you wanted.

  5. Re:sounds like the iPod interface by DarkSarin · · Score: 4, Informative

    People like to complain about the price, but remember, kids, that the $70 is from logitech. Newegg has it for $49 (out of stock) and other places have it for as little as $29 (after rebate).

    Shop around--you'll get it at a reasonable price. NEVER buy directly from the manufacturer--you pay more, and they make a higher percentage profit off your purchase!

    --
    "We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
  6. Re:2.4 GHz by Mr+Bill · · Score: 4, Informative

    Although I know you were going for humour here, I just want to dispell any concerns people might have that take your comments seriously.

    I have this mouse, and my Wireless-G router is about a foot and a half away from my mouse, and I have not had any conflicts. It would be silly if Logitech didn't take that into consideration.

    As for the quality of this mouse, I have had it for about 5 months now, and it is amazing. I've only replaced the batteries once, and I use it for at least 8 hours a day, and I rarely turn it off. They got the size right as well for a laptop mouse. Not too big, and not impossible to use like those micro mice.

    This one is definately worth the high price tag...

  7. Powerbook trackpad / Firefox? by slthytove · · Score: 4, Informative

    I assume your browser history problems occur when you are using Firefox, as I had the same problem when I got my new Powerbook. Thinking something was fishy, I investigated a little bit, and it turns out that the behavior is due to (IMHO) a poor choice for default horizontal scrolling behavior in Firefox.

    If you want to change Firefox to actually scroll side-to-side, open up Firefox and enter the URL "about:config"

    Enter a filter of "mousewheel" so you're only seeing settings relating to the mousewheel.

    Set mousewheel.horizscroll.withnokey.action to 0 (the default value is 2, I believe). You may also want to try adjusting the values of mousewheel.horizscroll.withnokey.numlines and mousewheel.withnokey.numlines to get a more comfortable feel for how screens scroll in Firefox (and make sure to set the .sysnumlines values for each of those to "false," otherwise your changes won't have any effect).

    After I got those settings fixed, I found scrolling with the Trackpad in Firefox to be quite handy, though for some reason it still seems touchier than Safari. Oh well - I guess not enough of Firefox's developers are Powerbook users, and I lack the initiative to make a positive change.

    1. Re:Powerbook trackpad / Firefox? by FuzzyBad-Mofo · · Score: 3, Informative

      Here's what worked for me with Powerbook trackpad + Firefox:

      1. go to about:config
      2. set mousewheel.horizscroll.withnokey.action = 0
      3. set mousewheel.withnokey.sysnumlines = false
      4. set mousewheel.horizscroll.withnokey.numlines = 1