Entered CNET Catalog: 03/03/2007
SKU: 085896722717
Manufacturer: ACCO Brands, Inc.
Manufacturer description
Beyond wireless, the Si670m Bluetooth Wireless Notebook Mouse connects without a receiver! So well designed, you can take this mouse anywhere and instantly appreciate its comfort, accuracy and speed.User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 User Rating:
3.5 stars
out of 3 user reviews
It's been reliable for 1.5 years so far
Pros: Form factor, robustness and the convenience of Bluetooth.
Cons: It's not the smoothest mouse, plus it's not very programmable. Details below...
Review: I?ve been using this mouse for about a year and a half, and while I do think it is a favorable choice overall, there are several improvements that could be made to enhance its functionality.
Firstly, the mouse does not glide easily on any tabletop or mousepad surface. For some reason, Kensington chose to use some type of soft plastic for the sliding feet instead of something like Teflon that other mice tend to use.
Next, the mouse tracking is decent, but certainly not as smooth as a six-year old Logitech Mouseman Optical that I use on for my desktop. Additionally, upon connecting a second bluetooth device to my computer, this mouse tracking will be severely affected, and needs to be paired up again to resolve this. This mouse will also not track at all on some bright surfaces (e.g. white formica).
Finally, in terms of functionality, others mentioned how this mouse is hardly programmable; with very limited options available in the factory software package. Being instantly frustrated by this since the first day I owned the mouse, I installed a small open-source application called AutoHotkey that finally enabled me to assign the ?browser back? command to the depression of the scroll-wheel. This addition was magnificent as the four-directional scrolling still works fine and I do like the way the scroll button feels on this mouse.
Moving onto build quality, the mouse is feels durable, weighty (which I like) and has a particularly appealing form to handle and appreciate visually. However, it should be noted that the plastic body is painted, and will wear and scrape off with use. Mine has developed a slight bald spot on the left button, along with other little scratches here and there that show because the plastic beneath the paint is much lighter than the metallic blue color of the body.
Nevertheless, there are features that I appreciate about this mouse. For my needs (office and graphical) it performs relatively well. I like the size of it, the rubberized surround has a very pleasing contour and texture, the battery access is inherently unique, the on/off switch is what it is, and the LED actually flashes red when the juice is low. Despite all my criticisms, I consider this a solid choice for a bluetooth mouse because over the course of one and half years, it?s been exceptionally reliable and convenient enough for me to carry around anywhere. It?s probably not the most advanced, feature-rich mouse on the market today, but its value is in its overall robustness and appealing form-factor.
Firstly, the mouse does not glide easily on any tabletop or mousepad surface. For some reason, Kensington chose to use some type of soft plastic for the sliding feet instead of something like Teflon that other mice tend to use.
Next, the mouse tracking is decent, but certainly not as smooth as a six-year old Logitech Mouseman Optical that I use on for my desktop. Additionally, upon connecting a second bluetooth device to my computer, this mouse tracking will be severely affected, and needs to be paired up again to resolve this. This mouse will also not track at all on some bright surfaces (e.g. white formica).
Finally, in terms of functionality, others mentioned how this mouse is hardly programmable; with very limited options available in the factory software package. Being instantly frustrated by this since the first day I owned the mouse, I installed a small open-source application called AutoHotkey that finally enabled me to assign the ?browser back? command to the depression of the scroll-wheel. This addition was magnificent as the four-directional scrolling still works fine and I do like the way the scroll button feels on this mouse.
Moving onto build quality, the mouse is feels durable, weighty (which I like) and has a particularly appealing form to handle and appreciate visually. However, it should be noted that the plastic body is painted, and will wear and scrape off with use. Mine has developed a slight bald spot on the left button, along with other little scratches here and there that show because the plastic beneath the paint is much lighter than the metallic blue color of the body.
Nevertheless, there are features that I appreciate about this mouse. For my needs (office and graphical) it performs relatively well. I like the size of it, the rubberized surround has a very pleasing contour and texture, the battery access is inherently unique, the on/off switch is what it is, and the LED actually flashes red when the juice is low. Despite all my criticisms, I consider this a solid choice for a bluetooth mouse because over the course of one and half years, it?s been exceptionally reliable and convenient enough for me to carry around anywhere. It?s probably not the most advanced, feature-rich mouse on the market today, but its value is in its overall robustness and appealing form-factor.
User Rating:
1.5 stars
out of 3 user reviews
good features, poor quality
Pros: pretty much what any mouse needs to offer today
Cons: blue scoll wheel breaks easily
Review: Have had the mouse in daily use for about 4 months. Blue scroll wheel became useless last week. No cleaning advice provided, Called Kensignton and they were useless. I would be careful with this product
User Rating:
4.5 stars
out of 3 user reviews
A great full-sized Bluetooth mouse for laptops.
Pros: Sleak design, great battery life and instant, reliable connection
Cons: No user-interface for customization of behavior/movement, slow horizontal tilt-scrolling
Review: I've been using this Bluetooth mouse for months now and couldn't be happier with it. The first thing I noticed about the mouse was its comfortable size and shape and its "grippy" feel from the rubberized side panels. Previous to this mouse, I used a smaller, rf-based "mini mouse" from IOGear that caused hand-cramps because of its tiny form-factor, so this full-sized Bluetooth mouse eliminated the both need for an extra rf-dongle (freeing-up a USB port on my laptop) and alleviated my hand strain. Its overall design is sleek, with a convenient multi-function tilt and click wheel. I've read complaints about the tilt option not working for some people, but after I installed the supplied driver from Kensington, all the programs I use in my Windows XP Pro SP2 environment work just fine with both the vertical wheel scrolling and the horizontal tilt scrolling. In fact, I've found the vertical scroll wheel to be VERY handy as it can quickly slide through pages and pages of information in seconds. I do a lot of programming in SQL Server and Visual Studio and have found that the mouse's high precision helps me click on small lines and areas of objects while the tilt/scroll wheel allows me to gracefully scroll vertically or horizontally though tons of code. The vertical scrolling is MUCH faster than I'm able to perform with the touchpad device on my laptop, and although it's useful at times, the horizontal tilt-scrolling is a bit slow if you're going through overly-wide spreadsheets or something similar.
In defense of the horizontal tilt-scrolling feature, I CAN say it is more compatible with programs than the ALPS touchpad device on my laptop. One particular case I need to mention is Firefox. The horizontal scrolling section of my Vaio's touchpad will NOT horizontally scroll a webpage in Firefox, while this mouse's tilt wheel does.
With two AA batteries, the mouse has some moderate heft, but it's well balanced and feels sturdy. As far as power consumption, the 15-minute rechargeable 2700 mAh batteries I bought for it haven't had to be recharged yet, even after several months of on-and-off use. The mouse seems to put its red laser into a flickering power-save mode after only a few seconds of inactivity, but is quick to reactivate, so much so that I've never really noticed it being unresponsive. I've even forgotten to turn it off overnight several times and the batteries haven't died. The laser does well on any flat surface with at least some minute pattern/texture on it, but falters on glass or other shiny/clear surfaces. Also, I've found that a slightly concave surface will cause problems if the laser is too far from the surface do to the curvature. The software/drivers provided don't offer a GUI interface that allows customization, but the mouse's default settings for acceleration, precision and scroll wheel speed seem to be good enough for my uses. The precision and acceleration are particularly handy for laptop use, allowing quick motions to cover the entire screen without needing excess mousing area to maneuver in. This is really handy in tight places like an airplane tray table. I routinely use this mouse on a 4-inch diameter circular foam pad (with a mousepad-like top) originally designed as a coffee cup coaster, and have never run out of room to mouse on.
As far as connection, I've never had any problems getting my Bluetooth-fitted Vaio VGN-A250 laptop to recognize the mouse within a couple seconds. I've found it's best to turn on the laptop's Bluetooth FIRST, then to turn on the mouse's power. After a two-second connection period, the mouse is up and running. Installation and initial discovery of the mouse was quick and easy, and the large illustrated installation guide included from Kensington was easy to follow. I've been able to use the mouse up to ten feet away, but haven't tested much farther and can't imagine why you would possibly need more distance.
Overall the Kensington Si670m Wireless Bluetooth mouse has been a great peripheral for my laptop, with a comfortable size and feel, great battery life and a reliable, consistent connection.
In defense of the horizontal tilt-scrolling feature, I CAN say it is more compatible with programs than the ALPS touchpad device on my laptop. One particular case I need to mention is Firefox. The horizontal scrolling section of my Vaio's touchpad will NOT horizontally scroll a webpage in Firefox, while this mouse's tilt wheel does.
With two AA batteries, the mouse has some moderate heft, but it's well balanced and feels sturdy. As far as power consumption, the 15-minute rechargeable 2700 mAh batteries I bought for it haven't had to be recharged yet, even after several months of on-and-off use. The mouse seems to put its red laser into a flickering power-save mode after only a few seconds of inactivity, but is quick to reactivate, so much so that I've never really noticed it being unresponsive. I've even forgotten to turn it off overnight several times and the batteries haven't died. The laser does well on any flat surface with at least some minute pattern/texture on it, but falters on glass or other shiny/clear surfaces. Also, I've found that a slightly concave surface will cause problems if the laser is too far from the surface do to the curvature. The software/drivers provided don't offer a GUI interface that allows customization, but the mouse's default settings for acceleration, precision and scroll wheel speed seem to be good enough for my uses. The precision and acceleration are particularly handy for laptop use, allowing quick motions to cover the entire screen without needing excess mousing area to maneuver in. This is really handy in tight places like an airplane tray table. I routinely use this mouse on a 4-inch diameter circular foam pad (with a mousepad-like top) originally designed as a coffee cup coaster, and have never run out of room to mouse on.
As far as connection, I've never had any problems getting my Bluetooth-fitted Vaio VGN-A250 laptop to recognize the mouse within a couple seconds. I've found it's best to turn on the laptop's Bluetooth FIRST, then to turn on the mouse's power. After a two-second connection period, the mouse is up and running. Installation and initial discovery of the mouse was quick and easy, and the large illustrated installation guide included from Kensington was easy to follow. I've been able to use the mouse up to ten feet away, but haven't tested much farther and can't imagine why you would possibly need more distance.
Overall the Kensington Si670m Wireless Bluetooth mouse has been a great peripheral for my laptop, with a comfortable size and feel, great battery life and a reliable, consistent connection.
