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Source: Me. My cat “Suchi” prepares to pounce on my mouse.

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Thanks a lot for the review. I'm planning to buy a mx900 the moment my Powerbook turns up.

Just a quick question - what exactly are the issues with the drivers? If you couldn't get the Logitec drivers to work what did you get working? Are there standard inbuilt drivers that work fine?

notb4dinner, without full Logitech drivers, the Powerbook can recognise left and right mouseclick, and the scroll wheel. If they make better drivers we will get the scroll wheel button and the other five buttons.

Strangely, they are recognised for expose however. But that's all.

Agreed: the mouse will work fine to "plug and play:" just set it up for blutooth as per my instructions and it will be fine for the left and right buttons, and the scroll wheel. This is all most people will ever use. However, Exposé will let you use another two buttons. Its just annoying that Logitech is so recalcitrent in updating OS X drivers.

Also, the two buttons fore and aft of the scroll wheel will also work to scroll up or down the page in small increments. In quicktime, one button will set the movie at the start, and the other button will set it at the end. These little buttons may have more uses, but annoyingly these uses cannot be customised without Logitech Drivers available.

~ozi

The other thing to note is that if you have bluetooth built into your Powerbook, you don't need to use the supplied base station/receiver (though you can still use it as a charger for the mouse without connecting its USB cable).

It doesn't exactly help that Logitech don't even call this a "Mac compatible" product on their comparison table. Would kind of explain the lack of compatible drivers floating around for it.

Sure, but mac users are 5-10% of computer users, and they SHOULD support it! This product is good, and its bloody annoying to have big companies neglecting Apple users. Fortunately, there are ways around it (Like using Exposé as i mentioned) but it really is remiss of logitech. BAAAAD logitech! *slaps huge corporation* *giggle*

I only skimmed this review but the one thing that I have seen in all the other review which has put me off buying this is that the base station does not work as a bluetooth hub on the Mac and you have to use another bluetooth adaptor, e.g. an internal one on a powerbook or a d-link dongle on a desktop. Have you tried using the MX 900 on a Mac that does not have built in bluetooth?

I'd really like to get one but it's not worth it if I have to buy the MX 900 and a 3rd party bluetooth adaptor as well, the whole point is to reduce clutter!

No, if you read the article, it shows that the recharger DOES work as the bluetooth hub. You just need to plug it into your USB and it works like a treat. It also works for other devices as well, ie your phone. (or so the packaging says)

The packaging and web site also say it's Windows only. In the review it didn't seem to come across that they had actually tried using the MX900 as a bluetooth hub on a Mac.

EDIT --

OK i read it again and it says "the mouse charger that it comes with can connect into any computer USB port and act as the BT base station" It doesn't say if the actually tried this / used it on any machine other than a PB with built in bluetooth. I don't want to spend 130 AUD on this and have to buy an 80 AUD D-Link bluetooth adaptor as well.

I've just read an old copy of Macworld Australia from February this year. It has a brief review of a few BlueTooth mice and keyboards. It says the Logitech BlueTooth adaptor is not detected on a Mac and that the MS bluetooth adaptor that comes with their keyboards is flakey.

I'm well aware that things might be different now but I'd like to know for sure.

EDIT 2 --

I just read here http://missig.org/julian/blog/2003/12/04/l...e-and-mac-os-x/ that the hub is detected as a standard HID device by OS X but NOT as a BlueTooth hub. This means that it works with the mouse, but doesn't work with other BlueTooth devices like my phone.

So I'm still undecided, I really want a cordless mouse, more useful than a remote control and means I can watch movies on the Mac without having to come over all the time to play pause etc... So it's better than the MX 700, but the alternative is I get a cheaper D-Link bluetooth adaptor and use my phone as a remote.....

Found another review, seems to confirm that it does work fine on the Mac but you can't use it as a BlueTooth hub for other devices. http://www.patrick-roeder.de/reviews/mx900en.htm

I'd love someone to prove me wrong...

Yeah sorry, just to clear this up, I am the author of this review. I have just now (ie 10 minutes ago when i woke up my pBook) had it tell me that it cannot detect any BT hardware so I cannot use my mouse with just my computer.

So I plug the USB cabble of the charger into my computer, press the blue connect button on the front of the charger, press the little white button underneath the mouse, and straight away my mouse is back up and running again. Cordless. However, it will tie up one of your USB ports, which is unfortunate, and while the mouse will run cordless, the Hub will need to be plugged into a power source and your USB port. So that will contribute to desktop "clutter."

However, I agree that I havent tried the charger as a BT hub for anything other than the mouse. From the reviews you have listed, it looks like it wont work, sorry.

So I cannot prove you wrong. It looks like this mouse is a mouse only, and will work with or without BT hardware installed in your computer, but not as a hub as well.

~mark

So... It looks like the Logitech BT mouse has the same issues as my Microsoft BT Explorer mouse. No driver and therefore the extra buttons can't be programmed for the same functions as a wired MS Explorer.

I discarded my Microsoft BlueTooth Explorer because I simply cannot do without the ability to page back and forth in my web browser with the mouse buttons. Exposé functions on the extra buttons? Not my cup of tea – I use the F-keys for Exposé and I actually don't have a lot of use for Exposé.

Perhaps, Apple at long last, should design a proper mouse and stop messing us all around. For now, I'm using the latest wired Microsoft Explorer with the side-scrolling wheel. A very nice piece of kit for my 12" PB even though it's wired. All my Macs and PCs are set up with side-scrolling Explorers. Superb mice. Logitech? An also-ran.

Some people are using Gamepad Companion to get access to the extra buttons on the Logitech. Might be worth a try.

User quote from MacUpdate:

I bought a Logitech MX 900 a few months back and ended up exchanging it for a MX 700 whch is identical except it's not Bluetooth...

The MX 900 is an excellent piece of hardware, but without drivers (there are NONE for the mac), I found it unsuitable with dual 17" apple studio monitors as tracking was far too slow. Additionally, tracking is not completely "arithmetic". When moving it along cm by cm, the tracking speed changes further making precision tracking very difficult.

I tried all the hints at macosxhints.com such as negative tracking, still to no avail. USB overdrive doesn't recognize the MX 900.

I also have a MS BT Intellimouse (also without drivers for the mac). It tracks identically to the MX 900. It's suitable for my 14" LCD monitor connected to my webserver, but I wouldn't consider using it on a larger monitor.

In short, please be aware that the MX 900 will be unsuitable in many situations: graphics programs where precision is required, and gaming among others.

Another quote from a user:

Also, I have no problems using this mouse for gaming, but I agree that lack of drivers would make it hopeless for "precision graphics" as you mentioned.