Blog on Charlie’s Server

I got the RadTech-branded version of the BT500 mouse in the mail yesterday. Having waited about two weeks for the thing just to be shipped out — RadTech was out of stock of the silver one I ordered — I was pretty anxious. An illustrated review follows.

Coolness factor? High, despite the logo on the top of the unit. It matches brilliantly with the aluminum on the powerbooks (except it’s shiny, which is a Good Thing(tm). What contributes most to the coolness factor? The glowing blue wheel (glows only while pairing — would be a huge battery drain otherwise).

The mouse pretty much lived up to all the great reviews I read of it (there are several linked from the RadTech site). Movement is very smooth at 800dpi, and the click action is a bit heavy (but not extremely loud) for gaming — It’s a good thing I’m not a gamer. In terms of precision, as soon as I set the sensitivity down to something reasonable for me, the mouse was much more precise than Lina’s old IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0 (also pictured). The BT500 is great for everyday use; I’ve been using it for a full day now and it’s served me well. Ergonomically it’s a lot better than most mice I’ve used. Obviously no word yet on how well the battery lasts, but I expect that the reviews will be accurate in this department as well.

My only complaints about the BT500 really lie in the wheel: it’s (a) too small, and (b) has a bit of ‘wiggle-room’ to it. I’m not sure if the ‘wiggle-room’ is an intended feature, but it took a little bit of getting used to; basically, when you scroll in one direction, then switch to scrolling in the other direction immediately, there is a bit of ‘wiggle-room’ where the wheel will move in the opposite direction but scrolling will not actually be triggered. The ‘wiggle-room’ is exactly one scroll-click’s worth of scrolling region. Again, I’m not sure if this was intentional - with such a small scroll wheel it’s easy to make a mistake, and the ‘wiggle room’ allows for this.

The matching case was just too cute for me to pass up. It looks to be pretty sturdy (we’ll see how it holds up), although the zipper on it isn’t one of those big tough rugged ones (like on luggage), which I would have liked. Hey, what can you ask for when the thing is so tiny.

As you can see, the case has ‘feet’ on it in which replacement (AAA) batteries can be stored. Very handy. I do have a major complaint about the case, though: it’s too big! Yes, I typed that right: it’s too big. With the mouse inside and the case closed, the mouse has room to rattle. Not cool. I’ll have to see about lining the case with fur-like stuff or something. Perhaps I’ll post on the topic later if I do anything interesting with it.