Logitech V450 Laser Cordless Mouse

Most notebooks or laptops have a pad wherein you use your finger to serve the functionality of a mouse. Some companies like Lenovo (previously IBM) have a stub (a small pointer), a much better alternative to the pad. But the convenience and the accuracy offered by a dedicated mouse is not comparable to any of the options above. Step in the new breed of mice, the notebook mice, which are marginally smaller. We are looking at Logitech’s offering, the V450 Laser Cordless Mouse.

The V450 is a cordless laser mouse. A laser mouse is more precise hence accurate than an optical mouse and can work on any surface except glass. It uses the 2.4 GHz wireless technology which has a far more stronger signal as compared to the 270 MHz signal, giving you a greater range (30 feet in the V450’s case) and virtually no drop of signal. In short an error free, reliable wireless experience.

Package Contents:

Receiver, Mouse, pair of AA batteries, Software

__PAGEBREAK__Design
Its most distinguishable feature is its size. It’s larger than normal conventional notebook mice and just a tad smaller than desktop mice. Nevertheless it is still comfortable and going for a smaller mouse would be impractical, as our palms are better suited to grip a normal sized mouse better. It comes with a good looking dual tone body. The sides and the scroll wheel are made of rubber to assist in a better grip. The receiver snugly fits into the back without protruding, unlike its Microsoft counterpart—the MS 3000. The problem with the MS 3000 is that with the receiver protruding out it stands a greater chance of accidentaly coming off while traveling and hence turning on the mouse. Both the mice have this nifty feature wherein the mouse turns off when the receiver is inserted into its back, thus conserving precious battery life.

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Logitech V450 vs Microsoft’s Desktop Optical Mouse 1.0A**

Installation
Installation is pretty simple, but opening up the battery cover will require you to look at the manual.

The receiver completely fits into the body

After that its pretty straightforward and the manual covers everything. It’s a little difficult to remove to receiver when embedded in the mouse and nails come in handy. We would have liked the grip to be more pronounced on the receiver for easy removal, more so, since you would be doing it on a regular basis. Logitech requires you to install the software to utilize all the features of mouse (the mouse works fine even without the software), in particular the zoom feature wherein you can use to scroll wheel to zoom into documents. The scroll wheel also tilts horizontally to scroll sideways. It works for all the platforms which include Windows and Macintosh. For Windows 98 you would need to install USB drivers download-able from Logitech’s website.
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Features and Performance
Being a laser mouse its very accurate and sensitive, something which Photoshop artists and gamers would appreciate. Through the Logitech Set Point software you can tweak a variety of things. You can assign keys and set the scroll speed, sensitivity and acceleration of the mouse. You can also make a particular set of settings to trigger when a particular game is launched. Another nifty feature is the on/off button. Incase your laptop’s on your desk and you don’t want to wrap up yet, you can switch off the mouse using the on/off button. Logitech claims to have a battery life of one year as compared to 6 months for the MS 3000, but then The MS 3000 uses a single battery as compared to 2 AA sized batteries used by the V450.

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Battery Compartment
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Software Interface is easy to use**

Conclusion
Since the mouse is a pointing device, it is generally placed in close proximity to the screen and it being a laptop mouse, there’s all the more reason to place it next to your laptop. Only if you plan to use it with your desktop and intend on gaming on a large screen, a wireless mouse would come in handy. So a price tag of Rs 3495, seems to be an expensive proposition. You can get wired optical mice from IBM and other companies for as less as 400 bucks. But if reliable wireless freedom and laser accuracy is your requirement then the V450 falls right in place.