Review: Kensington SlimBlade Bluetooth Presenter Mouse

Its extremely unlikely that there are as many computer mice as there are living ones on the planet, but there are a lot. Just cruise Kensington’s product list of mobile and desktop mice, and that’s only one maker! Fortunately, Kensington makes good, quality mice and I generally like them. The last Kensington mouse I reviewed was the SlimBlade Trackball Mouse and I didn’t really like it until I understood how it was supposed to be used. Its also rather heavy and not so slim, so it didn’t work out to be one of the mice I would carry with me in my lappy bag. Of course, that was one of the early SlimBlade models.

This new model is, like the others in the SlimBlade series, designed to perform more than one task. In most cases, there is a presentation element involved, which is the case with this model. It is designed to work as both a mouse and a presentation control module. You just switch between modes by pressing the Mode button twice in short succession, it flashes, and off you go. It supports both Back and Forward as well as a couple of other presentation behaviors. At the same time it disables the laser and stops acting like a mouse. Just double-tap the Mode button and you’re into Mouse Mode again. Easy as pie. The Trackball Mouse worked like a little thumbball mouse, which is cool for media use while sitting on your couch and manipulating your compy on your bigscreen TV.

The new SlimBlade Bluetooth Presenter Mouse (Hey Kensington, you really, REALLY need to figure out a more compact naming convention!) is designed to work in the same way, except with presentations, but its far superior to the SBTM and its probably because Kensington figured out a few things. I’ll be glad to tell you what those things are, as well. First, they figured out that the detector array under the mouse doesn’t need to be some ridiculously engineered portal with sophisticated industrial design. Now its just a hole. That works just fine.

Second, you don’t need lights everywhere to prove that its an optical mouse. Some of the early optical mice threw off so much light polution you’d lose most of your night vision capabilities! While the Presenter has its share of lights, they aren’t blinking or lighting up unless you tell it to do something or, and this is expected, when it runs out of battery juice. I do find it somewhat annoying that the presenter mode lights flash 10 times to indicate going into or out of the mode. Five would have been more than enough.

Third, you don’t need to design a mouse to be shaped like and nearly weigh as much as a Curling puck to make it comfortable to the hand. The Trackball Mouse was very heavy (two “AA” batteries didn’t help much) and is much larger, with the bottom edges curved in, presumably to make it more comfortable. This new Presenter is much slimmer, like its namesake, and just gets out of your way. Its also significantly lighter than the Trackball, making it almost disappear when using it, and I’m really liking that.

Despite this shrinking in size and reduction in weight, it still feels very well built and sturdy. There’s a strip of plastic which runs around the sides and front, and when you pull it forward is slides out to reveal the Bluetooth pairing button. This is nice, but then anyone who didn’t buy it or know about this would never, ever, ever find the pairing button and would therefore not be able to use it.  Of course, I don’t really foresee that kind of thing happening very often. Do you?

The new Kensington SlimBlade Bluetooth Presenter Mouse is a really solid product that is well built, has no real flaws, does the jobs it is designed to perform very well, and is priced right. I personally love it and can’t see moving to another mouse for some time, especially since I’m on the road all the time. This mouse is available now and goes for US$49.99. It works with both Mac and Windows systems. Pairing with Mac OS X 10.5 was seamless and fast. The unit takes two “AAA” batteries and Kensington claims it will work for three months before needing new ones.