Customer Reviews

Kensington SlimBlade Media Mouse, Wireless Mouse with Media Controller (Dark Wine) K72282US

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I got this mouse to replace my apple mighty mouse. As a replacement for the Mighty Mouse it works fantastic. The only thing I miss that keeps this from being a five star mouse is the middle click, which I too used for Expose.

The reverse itunes, dvd controls are an awesome plus which get rid of the need for the little remote. Also the optical sensitivity and speed is much better than Apple's. One of the things I loved about the mighty mouse was its 360 degree scrolling. This replaces it, and gives me opportunity to program expose keyboard shortcuts.

As a windows mouse, since windows doesn't have a 360 scroller mouse this is a great add on. Something one will find invaluable in design work.

I really wanted this to be a trackball mouse (that version cost more) for my SZ VAIO, which is also small and slick. First, I like the design and feel of this new mouse. The maroon color is fine. The design is somewhat flat like a fillet rectangle, but is very stylize and small, but not too small. The laser is responsive as my other Logitech laser mice, but I prefer Logitech contour. The 360 scroll ball feature is not a trackball, which for some reason I wanted it to be. It is smoother, but it is similar to MS and Logitech tilt feature to scroll up and down, and side to side.

Features:

I use Vista and saw little or no different with the driver install verse the Window default driver, so I uninstalled it. With or without the drivers, I did not get the mouse to do MS PowerPoint; which is part of the media buttons on the underside of the belly of the mouse and why it cost more than other mini mouse. The forward and backward media buttons work for Window Media Player, but not for Winamp, which I use. So it is a hit and miss on the software.

The USB dongle is very small, but I wish it was Bluetooth, so I wouldn't have to unplug it from my laptop all the time. The construction is a lot more solid and comparable to Logitech design details then previous Kensington's design that felt cheap.

Since, I don't use the media feature that often and it doesn't do much for PowerPoint, then the price is somewhat high. Without the promotional price I got, I would have returned it, even with its slick design. My idea mini mouse would be the Kensington SlimBlade Trackball Mouse with Bluetooth Wireless. That is piece too high right now.

I bought this mouse a couple of months ago. It does NOT have a middle mouse button (this was a big disappointment, I USE the middle mouse button, what were they thinking?). Other than that, the mouse worked, and worked well. Yes the scroll ball does scroll horizontal AND vertical, but it requires drivers to do the horizontal.

After a bit of time, the scroll ball started becoming intermittent. Eventually this annoyed me enough that I opened the mouse and discovered a dust bunny under the mouse ball. This mouse ball uses an optical pickup rather than rollers to detect motion. The optical pickup is (and must be) directly under the mouse ball. Unfortunately this means that every bit of dust that falls on the ball eventually gets carried inside and piles up on top of the lens of the optical pickup. They should have forgone the ball, and directly tracked the motion of your finger with the optical pickup through a layer of glass. Would have completely solved the dust problem.

Kensington has provided no means to clean the dust out of the track ball. It can only be done by disassembling the mouse. Disassembling the mouse requires a Torx screw driver, and a Philips screw driver to disassemble the track ball assembly.

It gets worse. Now after several months of not very intensive use, the left and right mouse buttons have become flaky. Sometimes they work on the first click, sometimes it takes 10 or more clicks for the mouse button to register.

This is an appalling performance for such an expensive mouse. I will be disconnecting it shortly and relegating it to my junk bin.

I was looking for a large (i.e. normal sized), low-profile, wireless mouse for my laptop -- something that fit my hand like a normal mouse, but did not create a big lump in my laptop case. The Slimblade fit the bill perfectly, and imagine my delight when I found out it also had media controls on the underside (brilliant!). No more lugging around a bulky Media Centre remote when I'm on the road.

The rollerball is very comfortable to use, and I like it much better then the typical "tilting wheel" arrangement on most mice, because you can move in any direction with the rollerball. I am not coordinated enough to roll and tilt a wheel at the same time to move diagonally on-screen. The downside to this arrangement is that it does not have the "clicks" a wheel does to provide feedback, so until you get used to it, you might find yourself accidentally flying through pages rather than scrolling a few lines at a time.

The construction is nice -- a smooth finish with enough of a "hump" to fit your palm comfortably. Like other reviews, I wish the rollerball was in fact, a trackball, but hey -- you can get that if you're willing to pay more $$. I like the concept of storing the USB wireless dongle inside the mouse -- no more lost dongles or fishing around in the laptop bag. It has the low-friction feet that you typically find on gaming mice, and the rubber sides are a nice touch, too.

All in all, a solid 5 stars for me.

Overall, it's a good mouse, cheap, and very basic. It looks great and feels comfortable, but I would not use it for an extended period of time. There are a couple of drawbacks, but for the price and the other features it works great.

Pros:

- Love the 360 scroll wheel, something i loved about the MAC mice

- Small, and truly ultra-portable

- Laser precision (works on my pillow like a charm)

- Media controls (works good with iTunes on PC)

- Looks great

Cons:

- Cannot click the scroll wheel (needed that in some programs/games)

- Receiver stores with batteries, which means you have to take off the case

- Receiver can be hard to remove

- When plugged in, completely freezes my computer for about 10 seconds before I can use it

If looking for the basics, and a good price, get this. If you have the budget though, go with the Logitech VX Nano Cordless Laser Mouse for Notebooks (Black)

Purchased this for my daughter for Christmas to use with her Macbook. She loves it and it works perfectly. It is a great wireless mouse plus has the media contols. It was a big hit. To date there have been no problems with this product.

I bought this mouse thinking it is a little on the big side, but its size is just right. We love this mouse, and all its features. There is only 1 bad thing about it. It used AA batteries, which made it heavy. What were they thinking? AAA batteries all the way for wireless stuff!

We still LOVE it... A LOT! :-)

I recently bought this mouse on sale for $15, so I really have no room to complain. Any wirelesss mouse is great for that price.

The mouse performs perfectly. I like how the USB dongle is very small and fits into the battery slots when not in use. I've experienced very few "dead zones" or drops in performance. I can use it from quite a long way away and it still functions relatively well. The mouse is also very sleek and diminutive in design, and the "red wine" color looks very nice as well.

The main problem I have in this mouse is its scrollball. It has no middle click, which is a bit of an inconvenience. One of its features is "360 scrolling" where you can scroll both vertically and horizontally. This is nice when you have a wide web page, but gets cumbersome because it's too sensitive. The mouse does not distinguish well between a vertical and a horizontal scroll. So, for instance, I can be watching a video on YouTube and when I try to scroll down (vertical scroll) I sometimes accidentaly do a horizontal scroll, which skips the video forwards or backwards. The horizontal scrolling also doesn't work very well with iTunes cover flow.

I do like the "remote-like" buttons on the bottom of the mouse, but, again, sometimes when I use it as a remote, I accidentally hit the scroll wheel and it skips the video. But these buttons work perfectly otherwise, although they only work with Windows Media Player and iTunes, but no VLC, WinAmp, or Powerpoint support.

I'm going to begin by saying that I only used this mouse so that I would have the ability to scroll, not only up and down, but also left to right. For my Yearbook class at school we use Macs and the mice available have the 360 degree scrolling, so I decided to search on Amazon for one that worked with a PC. I ordered the SlimBlade and it generally worked fine, but only if you scrolled exactly in a straight line. If I tried to scroll left, but it wasn't straight to the left, then it didn't work. It only seemed to function if I used the four cardinal directions, which was silly considering most people aren't perfect.

I really liked howthe USB can be stored inside the mouse and that made it more efficient for when I traveled.

I love this mouse. I've gone thru various mice in the last six months to replace my mighty mouse. And this has produced what i want the most.

360° scrolling, very low profile( doesn't have that bulky rear end like most mice ).

It is missing a 3rd mouse button, but I've never had much need for a 3rd, so it suits me fine. And the media control are just what i was lookin for for my Apple monitor that doesn't come with the little hand held that the iMacs do.

So short and sweet, outstanding!