Review of the Logitech V100 Corded Notebook Mouse

Netbooks do a lot of things right, but precise cursor movement is not one of them. For one thing, the touchpads found on netbooks are very small, some little bigger than a postage stamp. If you want to do anything that requires a moderate degree of tight cursor control, a mouse is a must.

I picked up the Logitech V100 corded notebook mouse from Target for $15 a few weeks ago and have put it through a workout. Here are my impressions:

You need to download the driver. The mouse does not come with a driver disc, so if you want to get all the features you need to, go to Logitech's website and download the appropriate driver. This is a simple, quick, and painless operation that will unlock a couple of extra features that won't work if you simply plug it in(the mouse does work in a plug 'n play mode, but a few features are not available).

Once you have your driver installed, you can use the side tilt feature of the scroll button as well as the zoom. The side tilt is great for flicking quickly along "wide" web pages or spreadsheets, and the zoom is perfect for looking closely at photos or fine print.

The size of the mouse is very small, and if you have very large hands this might be a problem for you. I hold the sides of the mouse with my thumb and ring finger and use my index and middle finger to press the buttons. This works well for the small screen of my 10.2 inch netbook, but if you have a large laptop of say 15 inches or more, you will probably want to adjust the mouse settings a bit to keep you from having to move the mouse all over.

This optical mouse is quite precise for most applications, but gamers might want something with even more sensitivity, especially if you have a large screen laptop. It is quite comfortable, and the cord is around two feet in length. This is fine for me, as my netbook has USB ports on the right side of the computer, but if your ports are(for some strange reason) only on the left side or in the back, you might want something with a longer cord.

The V100 comes with a three-year warranty and feels well-built. For smaller to medium-sized netbooks or laptops, this is an excellent product that should serve you very well.