The Bluetooth 3.0, touch sensitive mouse from nKliq looks like an Apple Magic Mouse from afar but, like an oasis in the dessert, the mirage begins to fade as you get closer. So is it a cheap replica or a price-slashed bargain?
The ‘ergonomic’ design is conveniently low-key for extra portability in your laptop bag and a breezy, flat-handed experience, but the slim profile makes wrapping your fingers around the mouse an awkward experience. Being used to thicker, rounded mouses – whether they’re egg-shaped or have contours on the edges for fingers to wrap over – makes gripping this mouse a little more hassle than it’s worth.
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Bluetooth 3.0 wireless technology is built-in, but since this unit isn’t a content-intensive streamer, the 3.0 stamp shouldn’t be too much of a head turner. It will give good connection up to around 10 metres in theory though. While testing, the mouse started losing its optimum wireless performance as I stepped around 3 metres out of range. That was on a laptop that had a lesser Bluetooth signal than Bluetooth 3.0 which vastly improves the connection.
Pairing is simple for a Bluetooth enabled laptop, but you’ll need to bring your own Bluetooth dongle to the party if you want to use the mouse on a non-Bluetooth computer.
The Bluetooth profile that you set up (if you’re a PC user, it’s as all located in the Devices & Printers hardware section of Control Panel) can be customised for power management and sensitivity options, as well as managing alerts for power supply left.
The 1600dpi optical sensor is a downgrade on the typical laser sensor that many mice house nowadays, downgrading performance on some surfaces. For instance, using a higher-performance laser mouse on a shiny surface or on your leg as you sit back on the couch yields better results than this mouse.
The standout feature of this mouse is the touch sensitive scroll wheel, though it’s also the most disappointing. Having no physical button for the scroll wheel eliminates the ‘middle click’ option from things like gaming or handy additives to web browsing like middle-click closing of tabs in Firefox.
It isn’t very responsive either, and I’d have to scroll my finger over the middle section of the mouse multiple times sometimes to enable the scroll. The same goes for the multi-directional scroll replacement to the middle click which sits below the scroll wheel.
The mouse runs on AAA alkaline batteries and are said to deliver around four months of battery if you were to use it to 12 hours a day (the company’s word, not mine, though after a hours of testing, the mouse never dropped below 100% battery). The mouse goes into power saving mode if you stop using it for a set amount of time.
The nKliq Touch Sensitive Mouse sells for under $50 and is a cheap and convenient option for a portable, wireless mouse to throw into the notebook bag without having to worry about battery life. But the tacked-on touch scroll is too clumsy to be considered helpful, and detracts from the value.
