Targus BlueTooth Laser Mouse
From TMUG - The Triangle Macintosh Users Group
Contents |
Review: Targus® for Mac® Bluetooth Laser Mouse for Mac
These days, mice as computer input devices are considered commonplace. Those of us who were using computers before the early 1980s, on the other hand, remember when they were considered novel.
Although the computer mouse was invented by Douglas Englebart, at Stanford, in 1963, he never profited from his patent on the device, because it expired before the mouse was actually used widely. Several experimental computers, most notably the Alto, developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in the 1970s used mice. Xerox PARC researchers exploited the Alto while developing innovative approaches to computing and user interfaces, including the Smalltalk object-oriented programming language, which in turn pioneered the use of the mouse and a window-based user interface.
The Alto was the machine shown to Steve Jobs and a few other key Apple employees when they were given a tour of PARC in 1979 after Xerox had invested in Apple. This visit sparked the ideas which ultimately led to the Apple LISA and Macintosh computers. In 1981 Xerox produced and sold the Star workstation, which introduced the "desktop metaphor" with icons and folders, but at an entry cost of $75,000 meant that it had much less impact than the 1984 $2,500 Macintosh or even the earlier $10,000 LISA, released in 1983.
The original Macintosh UI guidelines, as those for the LISA UI before it, insisted that the mouse have a single button. Multiple buttons were thought to add unnecessary complexity for the user. Most earlier mice had either two or three buttons (the Alto for example sported three). When Microsoft produced Windows, one of the things that they DIDN'T copy from Apple was the single button mouse. The one vs. two button mouse battle raged.
Cut to 2008, and the Macintosh UI has certainly left the single button mouse behind. In 2005 Apple introduced the Mighty Mouse, the first Apple mouse with more than one button. In fact it acts as if it has four, as well as a small trackball on top for scrolling. You can click on the top on the left, or the right, on the scroll ball on top, or you can squeeze the two side buttons. In 2006, a wireless version of the Mighty Mouse became available using Bluetooth. The Targus Bluetooth Laser Mouse is a direct competitor to the wireless mighty mouse.
Price
The MSRP for the Targus mouse is $69.99, a buck more than Apple's price of $69 for the wireless Mighty Mouse. But a Google search will find various sources for the Targus mouse starting at $52 or so.
Function and Construction
The Targus mouse goes one up on the Mighty mouse with five, count em, five buttons. Unlike the Mighty Mouse which doesn't have separate physical buttons, the Targus mouse has a slot in its top case separating the left and right buttons, and the "scroll ball" is press-able.
Rather than the two buttons on either side of the Mighty Mouse (which act as a single button), the Targus mouse has a rocker on the left side near the bottom, which provides two separate buttons.
The mouse needs 2 AA batteries which are supplied. To install or change them you flip the mouse over. There's a slide "switch" at the back end of the mouse which releases the top shell of the mouse providing access to the battery compartment. In front of this is a larger on-off slide switch.
Instead of a physical scroll ball, as found on the Mighty Mouse, the Targus has a clear window on top which optically senses your finger movement. Targus calls this the "touch scroll."
I really like this idea, since the only real problem that I've had with my wired Mighty Mice is that the scroll ball tends to get dirty and skips, just like the mechanical mice of old. This would lead to a session of pressing down hard on the ball and scrubbing it until it ran smoothly again. This shouldn't be a problem with the Targus mouse. On the other hand, I've found that scrolling in some applications, is less precise than with the Mighty Mouse. Sometimes scrolling doesn't seem to stop when I want it to, I noticed this both in Firefox and TextMate. On the other hand this might just be a feature. It seems if you move your finger steadily it will scroll with you, but you can also flick your finger which will start scrolling until you put your finger down. I guess I'll have to play a bit more before I decide whether or not I like this.
The Mighty Mouse indicates when is powered on, since it uses visible red light for sensing. At least this is true for the wired version, I assume it's also true for the wireless Mighty Mouse. The Targus mouse seems to be using an invisible laser, either infra-red or ultra-violet, so you can't tell whether or not is is using the batteries unless you flip it over and check the switch. The manual says that a red light will appear in the touch scroll which will light for 8 seconds when 1 hour of battery life remains and then will blink continuously when 30 minutes of power remain. I haven't used the mouse enough to experience this.
Although I can't find it now, the spec sheet claimed a rather impressive battery life, measured in months. I suspect that that assumed that the mouse was religiously turned off when not in use.
Installation
One of the reasons I leapt at the chance to review this mouse is that it's the first chance I've had to try the Bluetooth interface on my year-old MacBook. The only other Bluetooth device I have is my iPhone, which doesn't support Bluetooth for anything but a headset. It would be nice if the iPhone could sync via Bluetooth, but that's another story.
Using the mouse is simple, but requires a few steps. First you need to use system preferences to put the Bluetooth menu item in the menu bar. Then, making sure that the mouse is on, select "Set up Bluetooth device" to let the Mac and mouse discover each other and pair them.
Once you've done this, the mouse should just work™, and the two should automatically pair whenever they are both turned on and close enough. Note that the range of Bluetooth can be 30 feet or more. I once loaned the Targus mouse to my office mate, and had to yell at him to turn it off so that I could turn Bluetooth off when he ended up controlling my Mac.
Customization
If you want to customize the side buttons, you need to install the driver. This comes on a CD. I was a little surprised to find that the CD itself contained just a DMG file, which needed to be double-clicked to be mounted before I could double-click the driver installer package.
Once installed, you will find a Targus item in the other section of your system preferences. Click on "Setup Device" and another window will open presenting you with a picture of the mouse, and two selections, one for each side button. The buttons themselves are numbered 4 and 5, and there's no indication in the UI,or the documentation that I can find which shows which one is which. It appears that button 4 is the one in the back.
So I'd say that the UI for this is rather clunky. Why not make the CD directly mountable? Why the second window? And why not show which button is which.
You can assign one of several functions to each side button:
- The Default action - which is navigate back and forward in Safari for button 4 and 5 respectively.
- Run a user specified Applescript file
- Launch a user specified Application, or switch to it if it is already running.
- "Play" a sequence of user specified keystrokes
- One of a set of pre-defined functions
- Eject
- Print screen
- Select All
- Volume Up, Volume Down, or Mute
- Hide All (F9)
- Show Desktop (F11)
- Dashboard (F12)
- Application Switcher (cmd+tab)
- Navigate Forward or Back in Firefox
- Toggle Play/Pause, or Stop in iTunes
Summary
On the whole the Targus Bluetooth Mouse for the Mac seems to work well, and I'll probably keep it in my laptop bag.
Pros
- One extra button (If you like extra buttons)
- The two button rocker switch seems more natural than the Mighty Mouse squeeze side button(s)
- The touch scroll should be invulnerable to dirt.
- Physical buttons rather than different places to rock the Mighty Mouse.
Cons
- Scrolling issues with some applications
- No indication of power status without turning the mouse over, actual battery life TBD.
- Clunky UI for device driver installation and customization, on the other hand this won't be a frequent activity.
