Posted by Doug
Thu, 09 Mar 2006 13:16:20 GMT
I have an “older” 12” Apple Powerbook with built in Bluetooth. This year I have been trying to reduce the clutter of my desk and my bag by getting bluetooth devices without wires. The three areas I’ve been working on are the keyboard, mouse, and headset. I’ll write about the headset later. I love my Apple Bluetooth keyboard. It’s totally awesome. I’m very sad about bluetooth mice; however.
I have tried three Bluetooth mice:
I returned the first two and as of right now the third is sitting unused. Honestly, I think the problem is in my Powerbook. The newer powerbooks and the Macbook pro all have a newer chipset for Bluetooth that supports v2 of the standard. Mine only supports v1.3 of the standard. I don’t exactly know what all that means, but my understanding is that the newer standard is (among other things) higher bandwidth. Who knows? Maybe the newer chipset is higher power too.
I think my problem is that I just have too many devices operating in the 2.4GHz range. I have a cordless phone on my desk that’s 2.4GHz. I have a GSM cell phone with Bluetooth. I have two (!) bluetooth headsets that are 2.4GHz. I have a Bluetooth keyboard operating at 2.4GHz. I have my Powerbook with built in WiFi also operating at 2.4GHz. Last but not least, the Airport Extreme basestation for my home WiFi network is sitting a few feet away…
Maybe all those things are supposed to be able to work together. For the most part they do. However, mice seem like they’d be more impacted by lost packets. It stands to reason, if a mouse is 800dpi and you move the mouse one inch then for smooth tracking 800 packets will have to be sent “across the wire”.
Rumor has it my Macbook pro is supposed to arrive Real Soon Now. I’m pretty much waiting to do anything until I get that machine with it’s fancy-dancy Bluetooth chipset. I suspect all of the mice I’ve tried would work just fine as long as you have the newer Bluetooth chipset.
Posted in Hardware | 5 comments
Posted by Doug
Fri, 24 Feb 2006 15:52:20 GMT
My hot company, Rosetta Stone, has bought me a gorgeous Samsung t809. The display on this phone is stunning. I like the size and weight. I like the auto-lock keypad. What I don’t like is that it doesn’t support the syncML Bluetooth profile. This means it’s incapable of working with Mac OS X’s iSync.
I was just about to throw in the towel and swap the phone out for an uglier Motorola V360 when David Nanian (of Super Duper! fame) gave me an idea. I had just gotten off the phone with Samsung’s tech support. The end of that conversation was, “We have no phones for T-Mobile that work with a Mac.” When I told that to David he reminded me that any GSM phone will work with T-mobile if you just plug in your SIM card.
That got me thinking. I still have my Sony Ericsson T637 that has always worked marvelously with iSync. Why not simply use my SE T637 as a very clumsy conduit between my Mac and my t809? It works pretty well. Here’s my steps:
- Power down t809, remove T-Mobile SIM card.
- Power down SE T637, insert T-Mobile SIM card, power back up.
- Use iSync to load phone numbers onto SE T637.
- Use the T637 to copy phonebook out to the SIM card.
- Power down SE T637, remove T-Mobile SIM card
- Replace SIM card back into t809
- Power up t809 and feel the love!
There are two things that make this work fairly nicely. The first is props to Sony Ericsson for first-off working with iSync; second for nicely allowing me to copy all my phone numbers out to the SIM card. Second, while I can copy the numbers from my SIM card into the t809’s memory it easily allows me to use the numbers directly off the card.
Besides the umpteen steps needed to complete this process, all is not a bed of roses. The biggest limitation of this process is the extremely simplified phonebook on the SIM card. It’s basically one name, one number. So instead of getting one contact with both a cell phone and a home phone, I get “Joe Somebody/Home” and “Joe Somebody/Cell” and “Joe Somebody/Work”.... I may grow tired of that, we’ll see. For the time being, I’m happy enough with this hackery.
Posted in Mac OS X, Hardware | Tags Ericsson, iSync, phone, Samsung, Sony, T637, t809 | no comments
Posted by Doug
Wed, 15 Feb 2006 18:04:54 GMT
So I returned my Logitec V270 Bluetooth Mouse (you can read about my less than ideal mouse experiences). I replaced it with the Kensington Pilotmouse Mini Bluetooth. Unfortunately, I’ve found it to be less than ideal as well.
I love the size and feel of the Kensington Pilotmouse Mini. It’s not really a “mini”. It’s only slightly smaller than my standard sized Kensington Iridio. I like the way the Pilotmouse Mini looks. The silver and blue is sleek. The rubberized feel is nice too. I have pretty much zero pairing problems with my 12” Aluminum Apple Powerbook (1.33GHz G4).
My main problem is that tracking is unpredictable. I got the Kensington Mouseworks driver (which, btw, bonus points for the cute icon) version 2.5 which didn’t recognize my bluetooth mouse even thought the release notes said it should. I waited on hold for however long to talk to some guy in India who finally told me version 2.5 of Mouseworks wasn’t compatible with Mac OS 10.4.4 and that a new version would be coming out shortly. In the meantime I kept wavering between the Pilotmouse and my Iridio depending on how much I hated wires at the moment. The Kensington software update didn’t notice when the new driver was released. I had to go find it myself. The good news is that it recognized my Pilotmouse Mini Bluetooth. The bad news is that I still have tracking problems.
So, I’m returning the Pilotmouse and I’ve just ordered the RadTech BT510. It’s not especially attractive, but it’s gotten some excellent reviews. I’m a little worried about this comment
Update: From John Grzeskowiak at RadTech; ”...we’re working to find out why some are having cursor instabilities with the 510 – we plan to release a button-mapping driver soon which will be able to slow the acceleration curve and prevent this condition which seems to affect about 20% of the folks using this mouse with a Mac.”
I’m assuming that the “button mapping driver” is the RadMouse Bluetooth HID Driver. Also, the above lined article doesn’t have a date. So I can’t really tell if RadTech has had time to release any updates to the driver or mouse to compensate for the problem.
What I’m really worried about is that my Powerbook somehow falls into that “20% of the folks using this mouse with a Mac” and will affect all my Bluetooth endeavors. For the record though, I do have the Apple Bluetooth keyboard and am quite happy with it.
Posted in Hardware | Tags Apple, Bluetooth, Kensington, Logitech, Mice, RadTech | 4 comments
