Inode Ltd

Swiftpoint mouse

Today I received a Swiftpoint SM300 in the post … this is a sweet little addition for the laptop, although I find it a little awkward on the desk, and will probably stick to my trackball.

It’s packed full of useful modifications for laptop users; first of all its small! The tiny USB key charges the mouse quickly, talks to it wirelessly and uses an effective magnet to hold it in place when the lid is closed …

And the “parking accessory” sticks over the trackpad, helping to disable it for you … and provides a magnetic docking station to keep the mouse out of the way while you type (although the position they recommend rewards conventional touch-typing — I tend to use the right hand for more of the keyboard than perhaps I should!).

There are lots of nice touches; where in the past a manufacturer might have provided additional features through a driver that would be available only under Windows, this device is a pure USB HID. The “vertical direction” and “smart touch” features are configured through the mouse itself. As a consequence it works perfectly under Linux (well, Ubuntu 10.04 at least) — although when I first plugged it in nothing happened … but that was because the mouse and USB key were not paired, and that’s fixable from the mouse itself as well

[53641.820182] usb 6-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
[53641.995500] usb 6-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[53642.005439] input: Swiftpoint Limited Swiftpoint Mouse S300 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.1/usb6/6-1/6-1:1.0/input/input22
[53642.005858] generic-usb 0003:214E:0001.000D: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.11 Mouse [Swiftpoint Limited Swiftpoint Mouse S300] on usb-0000:00:1d.1-1/input0
[53642.010892] input: Swiftpoint Limited Swiftpoint Mouse S300 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.1/usb6/6-1/6-1:1.1/input/input23
[53642.011062] generic-usb 0003:214E:0001.000E: input,hidraw1: USB HID v1.11 Keyboard [Swiftpoint Limited Swiftpoint Mouse S300] on usb-0000:00:1d.1-1/input1

This will be a great travelling mouse too; the only downside perhaps is that the USB key doesn’t have a storage slot inside the mouse body itself, but that’s a minor point. And I still haven’t quite got used to the “SlideScroll” facility, but its only been in use for a couple of hours so far, so I’ll give it a chance!

Tags: laptop