Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 8000
January 31, 2008 - By Guest Reviewer
The Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 8000 is the first rechargeable mouse to come out of Redmond and it’s a decent addition to any desktop computer. It’s beautifully designed utilising plastic, rubber and metal in the casing and it worked perfectly on all the different surfaces I tested it on.
The mouse worked not only in Windows XP and Vista but also Mac OS X Leopard and - would you believe it - Ubuntu Linux 7.10. I was so impressed with the easy setup across all the platforms and Microsoft have really spent valuable time in making this device work across all operating systems.
In the box you get the mouse (obviously), a bluetooth transmitter as well as a desktop charger and power cable to recharge the battery. Battery performance was good and I only had to charge the mouse about once a week. In addition, there are LED lights at the top of the mouse which glow green while charging and red when the battery is running low which really helped in avoiding a dead mouse.
There are however two issues which might be potential deal-breakers to some. The first is that the scroll button, which normally acts as a third click button, doesn’t really work very well. While scrolling is incredibly smooth having to press the scroll button to get this third-click was rather painful. I often use this third button to open links on a webpage in a new tabbed window but this was not always possible with this particular bug.
The second issue I encountered was the portability of the mouse. Having a separate transmitter, which uses up valuable USB ports on a laptop, is a real flaw and Microsoft should find a way to integrate the mouse within built-in bluetooth connections. Also, if you’re planning to use this mouse with a laptop bear in mind that it’s not only a big mouse but also relatively heavy and based on this you can see this mouse was meant for desktop PCs.
Overall though, this was a great product to review and I’m going to be sad to say goodbye.
Rate this review:
(2 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
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Filed Under Computing, Featured Reviews, Microsoft, Mouse
Whats the price for the mouse? And what about the specs?
Where will this mouse be sold if I would want to buy one?
Hi Kevin
At the time of writing this review we hadn’t received the recommended retail pricing. You can however find it at various online stores here - http://timesurl.at/ff59f1 and pricing varies from R516.00 - R652.65.
The specs are referenced in the post above by a link to the Microsoft product page but you can find more info on that here - http://timesurl.at/59d024
Hope this helps!
I was able to get this mouse to integrate with no issue with my Dell Latitude D620 using Windows XP. Synced up fine and was using it within 10 minutes after the box arrived from UPS WITHOUT using the included USB transmitter. The only issue issued as mentioned is the clicking of the scroll wheel, it isn’t always picked up.