Customer Reviews

Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000

5 star:		(314)
4 star:		(166)
3 star:		(76)
2 star:		(63)
1 star:		(89)

 

 

I have been using this mouse for almost a month now and I am very satisfied with it. It is smaller than most mice, but fits snuggly in my hand, considering that I have big hands. It is very responsive (sometimes too responsive) and the back button and mouse wheel complement its functionality. The battery indicator is another great plus, cause at least you can get a warning when you are running low; although it is very energy-efficient, I'm still using the packed standard AAA batteries with an average of 6-7 hours of daily use. And the power switch is also great for saving energy.

To sum up, Pros:
- Excellent Microsoft design (esthetical, ergonomical)
- Great price
- Very responsive (it's laser, not optical)
- Great battery life (I'll let you know on the comments when the first pair of batteries run out. I already have a rechargeable pair on stand-by).
- Instant pairing with bluetooth enabled PC's (I did not try it on a Mac)
- Back button functionality
- Power switch lets you turn it off when not in use to save battery, and you just turn it on and in a couple of seconds it reconnects (this has been a life-saver since I walk away from my desk very often, and I would not like that some envious co-worker "borrowed" it for his home, and it fits quite nicely on my shirt or pants pocket)
- It glides very smoothly on almost any surface (even on my bed sheets)
- It comes with a nice carry-bag.

Cons:
- It has dropped the connection about 5 or 6 times during the time I have been using it, but it reconnects after turning on and off again. Kind of annoying.
- I wish it had a forward buttong as well.
- It is somethimes too responsive, depending on the surface you wear it on. I fixed this by tweaking the mouse sensitivity on the Windows mouse settings.

I recommend this bluetooth mouse.

UPDATE (2/23/08): Well, the battery indicator is going red now (3 months after I started using it), but, if I could, I would downgrade my rating to 3 stars because of the following: The power switch broke like a week ago (the damn thing kinda got loose of it's place and still moves, but it doesn't change the power state). I tried going DIY and tried fixing it myself, but ended up getting it worse, although I managed the leave the power on. This means poor craftsmanship from Microsoft, because I consider I did not misused the mouse. I now can't turn the mouse off, so I have to remove the batteries every time I don't use it. This resulted on casting the mouse aside and leaving it just for special occasions (long meetings or surfing @ home).

I still consider the mouse is good, but this has negatively changed my opinion on Microsoft hardware (don't even get me started on their SW).

The Mouse that Roared

I waited five months to write this review to give the Microsoft Bluetooth notebook mouse a complete workout. I am using it frequently with my Asus EEPC netbook on the road and at home and am very impressed.

The size is excellent considering this is a small mouse. I have medium-large sized hands and enjoy a mouse that is usually much larger. The Microsoft Bluetooth notebook mouse fits nicely under the hand and has excellent response. In fact, the mouse works on more surfaces and more obscure locations than of the other wireless mice I use on my home computer.

The reason I waited so long to do this review was because others complained about the on-off switches breaking. I had no problems with this switch and while I take good care of my equipment five months of constant use has proved that the switch is as sound today as when it arrived. The on-off switch is located on the bottom and is embedded into the unit. It does not stick out and it would seem difficult to break unless you are pushing it too hard.

As far as battery life, well I am still using the original batteries sent with the unit and five months of use is a lot of life from a single set of regular batteries. I have many times put it away without turning off the power switch yet the original shipped batteries are still working fine. Of course that leaves me unable to comment on the light that would appear if the batteries start to go.

The Bluetooth works perfectly and it is so nice to this feature built into the mouse and the EEPC, which leaves the netbook with no dongles or use of the USB ports. The most interesting thing for me is that the mouse operates on almost any surface. No need for a mouse pad or surface with color or patterns. I can use it on a white table, the couch, a piece of white paper or whatever and it is live and responsive. It also can be used at a greater distance and more obscure angles from the netbook than my other full size wireless (USB related) mice.

While the mouse has a page-back feature button it has no right hand page-forward button. A small drawback. There is a very responsive scroll wheel, which besides scrolling up and down, you can bend to the right or left to scroll pages in the direction you want. This is a great feature on the newer netbook 10-inch screens, which seem to never put the content in view without movement. It now becomes apparent why advertising takes up all the top of a page.

The Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse is a solid unit that is handsomely designed, well engineered, works without dongles, does not use one of the valuable USB ports, and energy efficient, which offers most, if not all, the features of a full sized mouse in a small compact netbook sized unit. All in all I am extremely pleased with the Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook mouse and highly recommend it.

This mouse works as advertised on a ThinkPad notebook running Windows XP. Bluetooth pairing was painless, and I'm pleased with the smooth functioning of the mouse, not to mention the elimination of the transceiver unit--one more black box I'd have to schlep around.

Size and shape are matters of personal preference, and I agree with a previous reviewer who suggested trading off some comfort is an acceptable compromise for portability. Overall, this mouse has a quality feel and seems to be well made; it has a nice heft to it, and the buttons and wheel provide solid, reassuring tactile feedback.

My biggest beef with this mouse is the lack of a dedicated or inclusive driver. It does not come with a driver disk, and it is not listed among the supported models in the latest Microsoft IntelliPoint software. Please don't misunderstand: this mouse works fine out of the box under Win XP (and, presumably, Vista). You'll only want a new driver if you're not happy with the default button assignments.

I called Microsoft technical support about this omission, and they confirmed anyone who wants to reassign button functions is SOL... for now. The tech rep would not confirm whether a future version of IntelliPoint would support this mouse, but I remain hopeful.

As of this writing (8 November 2007), therefore, I cannot wholeheartedly recommend this mouse. As soon as the software side of things catch up, I'll be singing a different tune.

After reading reviews for this and other Bluetooth mice on Amazon and Apple's web site, I decided to try this mouse because of comments I read that said that it was hard to get Mac drivers for Logitech mice. When the mouse arrived, I followed other reviewers advice and downloaded Microsoft's Intellipoint software for Mac and installed it BEFORE I turned on the mouse. Pairing the mouse with the MacBook Pro was simple and now, whenever I turn the mouse on, the Mac sees it almost immediately. The only lag I have seen is when the mouse is first turned on. The rest of the time, it works wonderfully. So far, I have used it with Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Microsoft Word 2008 and I have no complaints.

I bought this mouse in February 2009. It lasted about 18 months. During that time I used it daily, traveled halfway around the world to a desert with it, and carried it on numerous trips in the United States. It finally died because I dropped it one too many times...and I dropped it a lot. Wanting to try a different mouse I replaced it with aLogitech V470 Bluetooth Cordless Laser Mouse for Notebooks. You can read my review of that mouse on its product page, but in short, this mouse is far superior.

This mouse is sturdy (lasting through travel and abuse by me) and while the battery door and batteries would come off when I dropped it, the mouse always went back together well. It's about as comfortable as a little mouse can be, which is not very, but it's certainly usable. The mouse connected fast enough when I started the computer and battery life was reasonable. I didn't keep a log of when I replaced the batteries in it but I went months between battery changes...3 or more I'd say.

Where this mouse really shines (and easily surpasses the Logitech V470) is in sensitivity and ability to operate on a variety of surfaces. I never had any trouble with tracking on any surface, including furniture, the carpet, my pants leg, and our granite countertop. I often use my laptop in the kitchen when cooking and it was nice to use the mouse on the countertop. With the Logictech mouse I had to put my lapdesk on the counter and use that as the mouse surface. The Logitech was horrible on fabric surfaces (furniture, my pants) as well.

I wish this mouse was bigger...I'd love a full-size Bluetooth mouse. The back button is nice but two buttons would be nicer (for forward and back). The Logitech V470 has no buttons but you can move the scroll wheel to the left and right and I mapped that action to backwards and forwards in my browser.

This isn't the best mouse around (I'm partial to my 3-year old discontinued Logitech G5 Laser Mouse) but it's the best Bluetooth mouse in my opinion. That's why I'm back here today...to buy one of these for my wife to use with her new laptop. And when my Logitech V470 dies (I need to drop it more) I'll get another one of these too.

As a side note, I uploaded a couple of pictures of the two mice side by side.

I love this mouse so much! It runs smoothly both in Snow Leopard and Win7 (64bit). In SL, the configuration is easy. Now I would like to say how to configure it in Win7(64bit). Before I bought this mouse, I did read a lot of reviews about it and many guys said it cannot work in Win7(64bit). Yes, it was true for me at the beginning. The computer can find the device but the cursor cannot move. Now you need to remove and reconnect it again. Choose Bluetooth device icon and choose add a device, you will see the computer is searching the mouse. After it found the mouse, do not click next, you should first right click the mouse icon and choose properties and make sure you check "keyboard mouse drive program(HID)", then click next. Then it can work!

If you cannot find "keyboard mouse drive program(HID)" or just as some other guys said, in the Intellipoint list, they couldn't find this mouse, don't worry, just choose the "Intellimouse Explorer for Bluetooth", it worked for me! Then you can see "keyboard mouse drive program(HID)", OK, click next. That's all!

Hope this experience is helpful for you guys! :-)

I just recently purchased the MS Notebook Mouse 5000 and I also upgraded to Mac OSX Leopard. Leopard seems to allow me to use the Mouse 4 (back) button as I have assigned it to trigger spaces. It is pretty amazing to have that and work quickly between spaces and creating different contextual work environments for my productivity.

I heard of problems of using the back button for browsing - and I played with it a little to see if I could come up with something but I still can't figure out how to assign that button to the "back" function. But it seems like there is hope that this can be done since OS X will detect the mouse4 (as I have successfully bound it to Spaces app under the Spaces preferences.

I would imagine it is only a matter of time until someone creates a hack to bind the mouse4 to the delete button to be used as a quick run around to the browser back problem. But then I guess it would be dangerous if you accidentally pushed it on an important file. Then again there is Time Machine...

Anyway - the mouse is everything it says it is except for the Mouse 4 button which if you are happy with using it for Spaces - makes this a good product. Still, I think it is terrible when a product is touted as OS X capable and not fully functional so as a recommendation to other Mac users, I'm going to give this a 3. If you want to set it up for Spaces like I do, then you'll like the experience and the rating might bump up to around 4 or 5.

I bought this after my other Microsoft Notebook mouse (wireless but not bluetooth) died. I have been wanting this bluetooth mouse ever since I bought the new Thinkpad T61 with bluetooth built-in, so it's actually good that the old mouse went belly up. This new mouse is similar to the old one in terms of size and feel. I have medium sized hands for a woman so it's reasonably comfortable. The package contains batteries as well as a carrying case. Microsoft thought of all the littl details, except that forward button. What's so hard about adding a forward button if the back button is provided? That's why I took away one star - actually I only want to take away half a star but there's no way to do that. Performance wise it's very good - perhaps a bit too sensitive but I am getting used to it. Once set up it connects almost instantly to my Thinkpad. So far no disconnections yet. Also I have used it on all kinds of surfaces including my thighs, bed linens/blankets and the palm rest of my thinkpad. Very happy with this purchase. How long will it last remains to be seen. My previous wireless mouse lasted for almost 2 yrs - while my very old wired Microsoft optical mouse lasts forever (still going and going...).

UPDATE: battery life sucks! I have been using this mouse for less than 1 month. Turned it off whenever I don't use it (only occasionally forgot to turn it off when walking away). 2 AAA batteries that came w/ the mouse were completely exhausted now. The red battery warning light did go on a couple of hours ahead of time. My old ms wireless mouse has one stick of AA battery that lasted many many months, so I am really disappointed. If I discover any more problems I would have to take off another star.

I bought this mouse for another computer and didn't really start using it until I dropped my Logitech mouse down a flight of stairs and it stopped working. I love the design of the Microsoft mouse and was excited to start using it but am disappointed with it's performance.

At least once a day the mouse looses it's connection, sometimes while I'm using it, and I have to reconfigure the bluetooth connection for it. This never happened with the Logitech mouse. And I'm even running Windows XP! You'd think Microsoft would at least have product that worked with it's own operating system. This is a minor annoyance I could probably live with, but I hate the performance of the mouse as well. This mouse has problems with fine, small movements, and actually feels like an old-style ball mouse that needs to be cleaned. When trying to click small items like radio buttons, etc. it lags, skips and jumps, making it VERY annoying to use.

I've put up with this mouse for about a month now and am finally buying another Logitech. But the microsoft mouse is so crappy it motivated me to first write this review.

I was looking for a replacement for my cherished Logitech VX Nano and decided to give Bluetooth another try. The reviews on the Microsoft Bluetooth 5000 seemed pretty good so I took the plunge. Wow - what a disappointment. The precision is awful and the pointer frequently stutters across the screen. If the system is idle, 50% of the time moving the mouse will not turn on the screen; I have to press a key on the keyboard. Note, I do not use standby so it's not like the system is really offline in any meaningful way. The ergonomics of the MS 5000 are not quite as comfortable as the Nano. Both are small mice so you should expect some problems, but I find the Nano much more comfortable. Finally, I didn't realize how spoiled I became from using the Nano's amazing scroll wheel. The MS 5000 is a stutter-step sort of wheel and I find it very distracting to use. I am trying to decide if it's worth the trouble to send this clunker back.