Don Tolson
12-06-2004, 06:30 PM
<img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-nov04-mouse-main.jpg" /><br /><br /><b>Product Category:</b> Bluetooth Accessories -- Mouse<br /><b>Manufacturer:</b> <A HREF = "http://www.thinkoutside.com/" target = "blank"> Think Outside</A><br /><b>Where to Buy:</b> <A HREF = "http://www.thinkoutside.com/btmouse_product.html" target = "blank"> ThinkOutside</A> (ThinkOutside lists Amazon.Com and MobilePlanet as resellers, but I couldn’t find the mouse on either website.)<br /><b>Price:</b> $79.99 USD.<br /><b>System Requirements:</b> The mouse is certified for Asus MyPal A620BT and A716; Dell Axim X30BT, X3iBT and X50V; iPAQ 194x, 221x, 3970, 41xx, 43xx, 5100, 5400BT, 5450, 5500BT, 63xx, H6340, hx470x, and rx3100; HTC Pocket PC 02 – XDAII, Qtek 2020 / XDAII, XDAII; i-Mate Pocket PC Phone/XDAII; Siemens SX66/XDAII. Keyboard driver (v4.0) requires 480K of memory, which must be installed to main memory to work consistently. The mouse also supports Windows and MAC operating systems.<br /><b>Specifications:</b> Dimensions: 95mm x 55mm x 25mm (3.8” x 2.2” x 1.4”) Weight: 75g (5.6 oz) Optical Mouse with Right and Left buttons and Scroll Wheel with button. All are configurable.<br /><br /><b>Pros:</b><li>Lightweight, sturdy construction;<br /><li>Very easy setup/configuration;<br /><li>Excellent resolution and tracking;<br /><li>Good button/tactile response;<br /><li>Batteries should last several weeks (3-4 hours per day);<br /><li>Complete, ready-to-go package, including batteries and a carrying case!;<br /><li>Same driver supports Stowaway keyboards and the mouse!;<br /><li>2 year warranty.<b>Cons:</b><li>As with the keyboard, the connection does not show up in the Active Connections list of Bluetooth Manager.<br /><li>Quite a bit smaller than a normal, desktop mouse, so those with larger hands may have some difficulty;<br /><li>Not compatible with Symbian OS phones (yet!);<br /><li>Power-saver timeout is not configurable;<br /><li>Mouse pointer is not configurable (yet??).<br /><b>Summary:</b> <br />Once again, ThinkOutside has proven itself an innovator in the world of mobile technologies by being among the first to produce a Bluetooth-enabled, pocket-sized mouse. Now you can have the advantages of mouse-driven access to your applications and truly turn your Pocket PC into a Pocket laptop!<br /><br />What’s it like having a mouse on your Pocket PC screen? Read On...<!><br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>Making the Pocket PC More ‘PC’</b></span><br />After working with Pocket PCs and other organizers for over 10 years now, it’s not very often that I’m surprised by what I see come up on the screen. I have to admit though, it was a bit weird to see a <i>mouse cursor</i> show up on my iPAQ 2215. When I got over the initial shock and elation, I realized that I was finally getting the technologies together to really make my Pocket PC into a portable desktop replacement. No more having to pick up a stylus and tap my way through a document. Now I could use Word/Textmaker and Excel is the same way I do with my laptop.<br /><br /><span><b>What You Get...</b></span><br />As with most of the accessory packaging these days, the Stowaway Travel Mouse comes in the bubble plastic container that you need to slit along one side to open. Fortunately, with this one, slitting along the bottom was very easy (instead of having to fight with the triple-sealed sides).<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-nov04-mouse-pkg2.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 1: The contents of the Stowaway Bluetooth Travel Mouse package.</i><br /><br />In the package, you get the following:<li>The Stowaway Bluetooth Travel Mouse;<br /><li>Lined, cloth drawstring pouch for your mouse;<br /><li>Two AAA size batteries (required to run the mouse);<br /><li>Quick start guide;<br /><li>CD with drivers and user guide.Again, Stowaway has thoughtfully provided everything you need to get up and running with the Travel Mouse right out of the package. It was also very generous of them to include, at no extra charge, a protective mouse pouch.<br /><br /><span><b>Getting Set Up</b></span><br />Once the mouse was removed from the packaging, I (happily) noticed that the construction was actually quite different from my first impressions. Through the packaging, it appeared that the bottom circuit board was exposed to dirt and dust. Thankfully, I was very wrong. The top of the mouse is covered in a flat black coloured plastic material that has an almost ‘rubberized’ surface – smooth, but not slippery. It’s actually quite easy to grip and control.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-nov04-mouse-top.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 2: The view from the top.</i><br /><br />The mouse has both left and right buttons, a scroll wheel, and a middle button which is activated by pushing on the scroll wheel.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-nov04-mouse-side.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 3: Side view of the mouse. When I saw it through the package, I thought the clear part was exposed circuit board!</i><br /><br />The bottom is clear plastic to enclose the device – keeping out dust and dirt, while allowing the sensors to shine through. Four hard plastic feet are provided in each corner to facilitate easy sliding of the mouse on any surface.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-nov04-mouse-underpoint.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 4: The underside of the Stowaway BT Travel Mouse, pointing out the key controls and indicators.</i><br /><br />The underside of the mouse also houses the power switch (shown in the picture above) and the Discovery Mode switch and LED. The power switch is a miniature slide switch with the On and Off position labels molded into the plastic bottom. The Discovery Mode switch is a micro-switch which you activate by pushing a small tool like a stylus, pen or pencil (I would suggest the former, in order to avoid getting ink or graphite bits in your mouse electronics!) through a hole in the bottom cover. Once you activate Discovery Mode, a small green LED comes on next to the lower right foot, and stays on for approximately 2 minutes.<br /><PAGEBREAK><br />The batteries (two AAA size, which are included) are inserted in a compartment in the end of the mouse. You open the battery compartment by pushing (or pulling) backwards on the dimples at the top of the cover away from the mouse.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-nov04-mouse-battery.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 5: The battery compartment for the mouse is revealed by sliding the cover toward the back of the mouse.</i><br /><br />According to Think Outside, the batteries should last ‘several weeks’ when the mouse is used between 3 and 4 hours a day. I’ve been using the mouse at work, about 8 hours a day, for the last three weeks and the battery notification still shows as normal. UPDATE – just at the end of the third week, I started getting ‘Battery Low’ notifications. Think Outside has done a good job of integrating these messages with the system functions, since the low battery messages show up in the top line of the Today screen. (Sorry, I wasn’t able to get a screenshot.)<br /><br />Drivers for the keyboard come on a CD which runs the installation routines as soon as it is inserted. To install the drivers, you need a PC connected to your Pocket PC via Activesync – either direct USB or Bluetooth. Everything proceeds pretty automatically from the install routines on the CD. You can also download the driver installation applications and User Guide from <A HREF = "http://www.thinkoutside.com/drivers.asp?ManufacturerID=11&ModelID=43" target = "blank"> Think Outside’s Website.</A><br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>Pairing</b></span><br />I would strongly recommend printing off either the User Guide or the Quick Start Guide, which are also located on the CD, <i>before</i> attempting to load the drivers and pair up the mouse with your Pocket PC. While the screen prompts are fairly straightforward, there are some nuances to the way the loading, setup and pairing occur that are a bit different. Following the instructions given, the pairing was simple and worked the first time, but I suspect that if I had tried it without reading the manual first, I might not have been as successful.<br /><br />I won’t go through the entire initialization/pairing procedure here as it is well documented in the Quick Start and User Guides. Suffice it to say that it requires about 10 steps and will involve at least one soft reset of your Pocket PC, after you select either the Enhanced or Safe Cursor modes.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-nov04-mouse-selecttype.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 6: After selecting Mouse setup, selecting Enhanced or Safe Cursor mode.</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-nov04-mouse-verifycx.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 7: Verifying the Bluetooth connection using the mouse for the first time.</i><br /><br />Although the Enhanced mode worked fine on my iPAQ 2215, I tried switching to the Safe mode, just to see if there was any difference. The pictures below show how the cursor appears on the screen. I didn’t notice any significant difference, other than it seemed the arrow was a bit larger and the tracking didn’t seem as smooth. ThinkOutside suggests you stick with Enhanced mode, unless you start seeing traces of the mouse cursor following it, or encounter difficulties in re-establishing a connection after a soft reset.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-nov04-mouse-safemode.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 8: The Today screen with a Safe mode cursor.</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-nov04-mouse-textmsafe.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 9: Safe Cursor mode in Textmaker.</i><br /><PAGEBREAK><br />Once the pairing is established, you can turn off the power to the mouse at any time and stick it in your pocket. When you want to use it again, simply power on the mouse and press one of the buttons for a second or so, and the pairing will be re-established. I found the pairing even survived removal and replacement of the batteries while I was shooting pictures of the packaging!<br /><br />It was also fairly easy to pair up the mouse with my laptop running WinXP SP2 and a Belkin F8T001 USB Bluetooth adapter. However, the mouse would not pair up with my Nokia 3650 phone. Not for a lack of trying, though. The phone recognized the mouse, but it wanted to establish a secure connection with a passkey, and there was no way to set a passkey with a mouse, and no way to tell the phone to set up a non-secure connection.<br /><br />Unfortunately, you also cannot pair with two devices at once. There was no way I could get the mouse to be recognized by both the laptop and the Pocket PC at the same time. This makes sense, since Bluetooth is supposed to establish a ‘virtual cable’ connection, so it wouldn’t be right to have a mouse with two cables coming out of it. Unfortunately, that means that if, like me, you want to use the mouse on both the laptop and the Pocket PC, you need to disconnect it from the current connection by placing the mouse in Discovery Mode, then re-establish the pairing with the other unit. This isn’t a difficult chore and on the Pocket PC, it’s not necessary to go through the entire set up procedure (i.e. selecting Enhanced vs. Safe Mode and soft-resetting the Pocket PC) each time. You just need to re-establish the connection by tapping on the Connect Button in the Mouse driver, then pressing the Discovery Mode button on the bottom of the mouse, then any button on the top of the mouse.<br /><br />Fortunately, the same driver supports ThinkOutside’s BT keyboard as well. Because I had replaced the driver, I had to re-establish the pairing with the keyboard, but that was pretty straightforward.<br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>Configuration</b></span><br />ThinkOutside provides a number of configuration parameters for the mouse once it is connected and paired. These are available at any time by tapping on the mouse icon inserted in the system tray, or by tapping on the Stowaway Travel Mouse icon from the Programs folder.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-nov04-mouse-configmain.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 10: The mouse configuration screen.</i><br /><br />Each of the buttons on the mouse is configurable to different functions, selectable from the drop down lists provided.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-nov04-mouse-configleft.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 11: Options for configuring the Left mouse button.</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-nov04-mouse-configmid.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 12: Options for the Scroll Wheel button.</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-nov04-mouse-configright.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 13: Configuration options for the Right Mouse Button.</i><br /><br /><span><b>Resolution and Tracking</b></span><br />To me, resolution translates to the granularity of the mouse’s sensor grid as it detects movement. A mouse with coarse resolution will require more motion in a given direction to detect movement and respond, than a mouse with finer resolution. This is especially evident when you are working in detail work – such as photo retouch at medium magnification, or CAD engineering work, where you want the mouse to respond to fairly small and precise movements.<br /><br />Tracking is the ability of the mouse to translate the direction and amount of movement in a smooth fashion – with no stops, stuttering, or jumps – regardless of the surface. I tested the mouse on a variety of surfaces – from desktops to mirrors to flat colour construction paper. Since it uses optical tracking, I was expecting problems with the mirrored and flat black surfaces, but it performed very well on all of them. Resolution is very good and similar to that of my full-sized optical mouse. Tracking was smooth and consistent with no jerks or jumps through the entire range of travel (screen edge to screen edge). The scroll wheel was also smooth and predictable. In fact, I used the mouse to touch up all the photographs used in this review.<br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>Daily Use</b></span><br />During normal use, the optical sensor on the bottom of the mouse will blink rapidly as it senses motion (or not) of the mouse. After about a minute or so of non-movement, the mouse will go into <i>power saver</i> mode, shutting off the sensor. To re-awaken the mouse, you simply push on one of the buttons.<br /><br />The dimples on the top of the battery compartment serve a dual purpose. They make it easier to slide the battery compartment open and they provide a good tactile feel for the top of the hand as it rests on the mouse. The surface is smooth, but not slippery – it also feels like a type of rubber – and the buttons have a good, solid tactile travel, similar to that of a regular mouse. Overall, the mouse has a good feel to it and it is very comfortable for all-day use. It is considerably smaller than a conventional mouse, so those with bigger hands might find it a bit difficult to wrap their fingers around, rather than rest their palm on it.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-nov04-mouse-sizecompare.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 14: Side-by-side comparison of the Travel Mouse with a regular optical mouse.</i><br /><br />Its light weight and smaller size make it a perfect pocket-able accessory for inclusion with your keyboard. It fits easily into a pants or coat pocket without making you feel like you’ll list to one side :-)<br /><br />I tried the Stowaway Travel Mouse on almost every application and game on my Pocket PC and couldn’t find any that didn’t respond to the mouse in the same way that it would taps from the stylus. All showed the mouse cursor, tracked properly and completed the actions on mouse clicks – just the same as if I had tapped the screen. Of course, of most use to me would be the use of a mouse in Office applications such as word processing and spreadsheets, so below are some screenshots of the mouse working in TextMaker, Pocket Excel, Pocket IE, and Pocket Bubbles.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-nov04-mouse-inTextM.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 15: Using a mouse in TextMaker.</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-nov04-mouse-inExcel.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 16: Mousing around in Pocket Excel.</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-nov04-mouse-inIE.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 17: Mouse use in Pocket IE.</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-nov04-mouse-inPBubbles.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 18: You can even use the mouse in Games like Pocket Bubbles.</i><br /><br />I also extensively tested simultaneous use of the mouse and keyboard to determine if the Bluetooth would have problems with communication collisions. I held down a key on the keyboard to get it repeat, then move the mouse around at the same time. I didn’t see any tracking problems on the mouse or skipping of the keyboard.<br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>Documentation</b></span><br />As mentioned before, the CD provided in the package contains a copy of the Quick Start and User guides. It’s a good idea to print off copies of these and review them as you are setting up, configuring and using the mouse for the first time, as they provide very good step-by-step instructions.<br /><br />In the User Guide, there is frequent reference to a ‘middle button’, which I take to mean the button associated with pressing on the scroll wheel.<br /><br /><span><b>Conclusions</b></span><br />Well, I said I was not quite to Nirvana when I got a chance to work with the <A HREF = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=32261" target = "blank"> Stowaway Bluetooth Keyboard.</A> Now, I guess I’ve transcended to the next level, but again, not quite to the final stages of enlightenment. The mouse has become a regular staple in my daily working toolset and I love the fact that it’s Bluetooth enabled.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-nov04-mouse-BTdesktop2.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 19: My new desktop! (If you look closely, you can just see the cursor at the bottom of the screen, beside the Window’s logo).</i><br /><br />I have to admit, it’s neat have people come up and a) say “That’s really cute" (mostly females), and b) "Is that wireless?" and then ask about what Bluetooth is all about. What I REALLY need now is a Bluetooth-enabled colour laser printer!!!