Review of the Logitech MX-1000 Radio Controlled Laser Beam Mous Mover
The Murmatron testing laboratory is full to the the hat-band of the latest scientific gadgetry enabling us to tick off the checklist of things that matter to you the most at the time of buying, so you may trust our epinion of things much mor than usual.
Update 2008-10-16: Well now, several years down the line, it's stopped working properly. Stupid mous. I suppose that if I installed the toxic SetPoint bloatware it would probably tell me something like “Your mous has experienced a problem and must be replaced with a new one” but as it stands, I have no idea what's wrong with it.
Don't listen to the hype of the marketing departments. The Murmatrons give you all you need to know about the Logitech MX-1000 and whether it's the wrong mous for you or not.
Well now. Grab a seat and shuffle up your feet for the in-depth review of the latest addition to the Murmatron Server. It surely is the Logitech MX-1000 Radio Controlled Laser Beam Mous Mover that we are talking about and make no mistakes at the time of writing; this is very much the best mous that is available to the Murmatrons for pointing the server pages at you. Okee-dokee, enough of the small talk. Let's jump right in and get to the bare bones of the issue at hand.
Outside the Box
The packaging of the MX-1000 Laser Mous Mover is very lovely alright. It have caught the eyes of the Murmatrons in a shop with the rainbow of colours and we have been buying it on the impulse. It was surely the most expensive mous mover in the shop and we probably would not have bought it if it had been in a boring old cereal packet like the otherwise quite nice mous movers of Microsoft.
Inside the Box
Inside the lovely packaging is lots of stuff in a list:
- The mous mover itself containing a rechargeable Lithium-Icon battery
- The base station charging receiver with Universal Cereal Bus connector
- A supplier of electrons for the charging receiver base
- A Universal Cereal Bus to Playstation 2 adaptor in a nice shade of green
- A useful safety guide to ensure that you do not get repetetive strain injuries in your appendages
- Several handy wire twists for you to save and use for keeping the sandwiches fresh in a bag for your picnics
- A CD programs disk with out-of-date driving software
- A guide for the quick setup in far too many languages
- Assorted plastic bits which may be used for jelly moulding or making interesting garden features like a bird bath if filled with concrete or similar
Setting up the Mous Mover for the first time of asking
Marvellously, the clever fellows at Logitech had decided to charge the battery already - or maybe it was the clever fellows in the manufacturing plant in China who decided to do it. We may never know the truth of this , but at least we were not waiting to charge the mous mover before we could try pointing the laser in our eye.
Plugging the mous-mover into the Murmatron test-bench experimental laptop computer (for we do not want to test things on the mission-critical server machine which sends these pages to you) we discovered that the mous is mostly working without installing a driving disk already. The mysterious power of Windows XP will hardly show its limits of endurance in this respect.
Knowing full well from the experience of a life-time that the CD driving disk would contain the programs of yesteryear, we hopped along to the driving program download site of Logitech to get a later version. Much to the horror we have revealed that it was 37MB (at the time of writings) of data you know.
Several notings should be made at this point:
- 37MB of data is too much for simply driving a mous mover - even a radio controlled laser beam one
- We suspect that ther may be secret datas hidden in the driving programs
- We believe that the secret datas may have been placed there by the KGB or CIA or Mossad or possibly even Talibans
- We do not know what the secret data are for, but if we subtract the normal size of a mous mover software from the 37MB we are leaving 36.5MB of highly suspectious digital snoopery that need some explaining to do.
After installation of the driving software, we discover that the 3 of the butans that did not work already are now working with increased functionality. Unfortunately, when we are now clicking the middle butan for the smooth-scroll of Opera pages the working rate is at a percentage less likely than the herding of cats. The forward and reverse butans also now are not working with the Opera browser even though without the driving software the very same were okee-dokee fine. We also have a useful icon in the task-bar that we cannot turn off and we have objections of a philosophical nature to this. The driving program is also using valuable memories in the murmatron laptop.
Removing the driving software again
It is about this time that we realise that we would rather be having the very likely working smooth scrolling middle butan and do not care about some butans doing nothing so we have removed the driving software and whatever secret datas it have contained. Without the driving softwares some things do work in a list:
- moving the mous pointer on your screen
- butans, left and right and middle
- scrolling trundler
- butans forward and reverse
- butan ON/OFF
- butan RESET
...and some things do not work in another list:
- tilting left and right scroll wheel trundler butans
- the other butan between forward and reverse
- customisation of the butan functionality when presd
Weighing up the pros & cons versus the pluses & minuses we have decided that the driving programs are not worth the inevitable hassle which is not entirely without precedent you know. We have also found the same with the Microsoft driving programs for the Telly-Mous and whatnot - mostly everything is okee-dokee, but sometimes things become a bit wonky and really its just easier to do without the hassle.
The ergonomics of a mous mover
It is mostly ok, but because of the contained inside rechargeable battery, it is most likely the weightiest of mouses that you will ever happen across until such times as a heavier one is available. This would be useful to ensure that the mous mat does not blow away in a breeze, but the laser beam technology ensures that a mous mat is not needed so is unlikely to blow away thus rendering the extra weight very unuseful except wher you throw it at a cat in a rage.
The MX-1000 Radio Controlled Laser Beam Mous Mover is very ergonomically designed in the shape compartment. It is exactly right for the shape of the Murmatron appendages to twiddle the butans with a minimum of fuss and bother. It is also the exact shape of the dishy bit of the concrete bird-baths in the Murmatron garden if you can visualise that in your head pictures.
The butans are all working with a clickety-click, but praps the middle one (the scroll trundler wheel button) could do with being a bit less stiffer. The scroll trundler is also working smooth as the chin of a hamster (left).
Pointing the laser in your eye
This is probably the best bit of the laser mous mover - the laser. At first we were of a mind to think that it was broken for we could not see a fantastic red beam of doom like in the Hollywood motion picture 'Mission Impossible' and we spent much time peering into the laser eye with magnifying glasses and suchlike. It turns out that the laser is of the infra-red variety which is very disappointing for we would have liked to see it very much.
So what of the laser beam you ask
The documentary propoganda is saying that the laser beam it is much better than the old-hat LED type of optical mous mover technology for it can see with its little eye the tiny tiny patterns in things underneath of itself. "What-ho?" you are asking me "but is it working?" Well yes, it seems working alright. It can work on a shiney desk or a piece of white paper just fine for sure which would both surely boggle the mind of a regular optical mous mover. For some reason it did not work very well on the surface of a CD which as every one of our readers will already know is usually read using the laser beams already. This has us confused in the second part, but we suspect that maybe the MX-1000 Laser Beam Mous Mover did not like the contents of the CD very much and have ignored it in a summary fashion of spite.
Radio controlled for added supremacy
The fact that the MX-1000 is radio controlled means that ther is no mor wires from the mous to the computer machine. This is conveniently offset by the fact that there are two wires on the recharging receiver base station - one for the UCB and one for the charging electrons. As you can deduce this is a net gain of 1 whole cable over a standard type of mous mover, or a 100% improvement to all you scientific types out there.
Conclusion
We like:
- the box
- complimentary wire twists for sandwich bags
- extra cable
- quite heavy, so will not blow away easily
- rechargeable battery
We don't like:
- cannot see laser beam, even with a magnifying glass
- may be too heavy to throw at a distant cat
- driving programs
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