Date: July 15th, 2004
Article by: Nathan Glentworth (Owner, Head Editor & Hardware Reviewer)
Product was donated by: Logitech
<---SHOP FOR THE LOGITECH CORDLESS MX DUO ELITE HERE

PRODUCT WALKTHROUGH & PICTORIAL

Let's take a short virtual walk around this product....

MX700 Cordless Optical Mouse

On the left side of the mouse are two buttons which at default set to be the forward and back buttons associated with Internet Explorer. Until now, I have never had the chance to use this feature, but it does sure make surfing a lot more efficient.

The left and right standard mouse buttons are incorporated into the one piece top section which reduces the amount of parts that can become faulty over time. Every mouse failure I have personally had is through the mouse buttons sticking. The mouse wheels and buttons are very easy to use and require minimal effort. In the center of the buttons is the mouse wheel along with the Cruise Control(tm) buttons which allow you to scroll up and down large web or document pages without having to keep on rolling the mouse wheel. To the right of the lower cruise control button (in this photo) is the Quick Switch(tm) button that allows you to quickly switch between open tasks much like Alt-Tabbing in Windows.

As you flip the mouse over, the first thing you will notice is the yellow tag that keeps the one battery from making an electrical connection and rendering the rodent dead for transport.

Inside the battery compartment is two AA 1800mAh NiMH batteries. Just in case you didn't know, NiMH batteries are one of the best rechargeable battery technologies on the market today and are only topped by Lithium Ion. They allow for a long service life, higher charge and current capacity and don't have the memory effect seen while using NiCD (Nickel Cadmium) batteries. To condition the batteries for a long life, allow the batteries to fully discharge and fully charge three to five times. After that, you can top up the batteries every night in the cradle if you want everything ready for a new day at work.

While I am mentioning the batteries, be prepared to get used to a much heavier mouse. The two batteries do add quite a bit of weight and it will take a little time to get acquainted with the additional heft.

When I installed the mouse, the batteries were very low and required immediate charging before use. Just pop the mouse into the charger button side up and the cradle will quickly charge them in 1-2 hours or less. Also noted in this photo is the connect button to initialize the mouse with the charging base for use. If for any reason you remove the battery for service, you will have to press this button to set the mouse up again for transmission.

The real tough thing to call is the battery life of this mouse on a full charge. During normal use for 8 hours, I was only able to drop the charge to just below half. As said earlier, it is better to top the mouse up every night, but from time to time you should allow the batteries to completely discharge and recharge to keep them in good condition.

The heart of the MX700 is the MX optical engine capable of transmitting 4.7 megapixels per second, an optical resolution of 800dpi and a tracking speed of 40 inches per second. With such a large sampling rate and resolution, the question to ask is whether the RF link between the base and the mouse will be able to keep up with the MX700's optical speed. To answer the question, yes. At 125 samples per second, the data link is more than capable of handling the transmission without any delay. This will definitely be something that will keep the gamers happy.