Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000

Offering excellent versatility in a portable package, the Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000 gives users of notebooks a variety of functionality primarily for the purpose of giving presentations. It's easy to set up and useful, not only for its primary purpose, but also for other areas of computing, such as listening to music or watching movies.

Comprised of the mouse itself and a USB dongle that acts as a Bluetooth 2.0 receiver, the Presenter Mouse 8000 works as both a mouse and a remote control of sorts. Once the Intellipoint software has been installed you plug the USB dongle into the notebook or PC and pair it with the mouse. In Mouse Mode the left and right mouse buttons work like normal and a third button on the left of the mouse works like a Back button. A further two buttons make things a little more interesting. The button on the far right brings up a magnifier and holding this button down allows you to increase the magnification and also the size of the viewing glass. This is an excellent feature if you wish to highlight something on a shared screen for many people in a large room - all in a pinch.

The button in the centre, behind the mouse wheel, switches the device into Presenter/Media Mode. Once in this mode you can pick up the mouse and flip it over. There, on the bottom, are a whole collection of new controls including play/pause, skip track and volume controls. The obvious use for this is during playback of a movie or audio track, but when in programs such as Microsoft PowerPoint it can also be used to skip between slides with ease. Also found amongst the media controls is a laser pointer button, which activates a laser pointer that comes from the tip of the mouse.

Installation was simple. We even tested the setup in Microsoft Windows Vista. The supplied installation disc came with software valid for Windows XP only, but Vista quickly picked up on the problem and promptly directed us to a download link where the appropriate Vista software was available. Once the software was installed the icon it left on the desktop linked to the basic mouse setup controls, where buttons can be programmed and all other standard mouse controls can be customised. Since it is designed for on-the-road usage Microsoft has supplied a clear hard shell to keep both the mouse and USB receiver during transport.