Think Outside's Bluetooth Stowaway Travel Mouse works with Pocket PCs
By Peter Rojas 
posted Oct 28th 2004 12:46PM
posted Oct 28th 2004 12:46PM
Maybe you think you don't want or need a Bluetooth mouse for your PDA, but if you're going to ditch the laptop and
just use a Pocket PC and and portable keyboard on that next roadtrip at some point you're going to wish you had a
mouse, too. Besides working with most Bluetooth-enabled laptops, Think Outside's new Stowaway Travel Mouse is also
compatible with loads of Pocket PCs and Pocket PC Phones. Should be out soonish.
[Thanks, Barry]
this looks prety cool, but does it have a decent refresh rate? (aka can i game with it?)
Man, do I want to play with this.
It is a re-packaged Bluetake BT500 Bluetooth mouse? You decide :)
http://www.bluetake.com/products/BT500.htm
The Bluetake model is a great product so I'm sure the ThinkOutside model is just a great albeit more expensive.
While not a repackaged Bluetake, this mouse certainly is the same as the $35 mouse offered by computerlogin.com, which is where I got mine. (which I love and heartily recommend) http://computerlogin.com/sales/productfile/Y_BlueTMouse.html
Of course, all of these mice are repackaged Cellink internals, which for some reason aren't for sale in the USA, but can be had in Asia and Europe for bargain prices. See if you can figure out who else repackages their products, more than you'd think before browsing their inventory.
http://cellink.com.tw/
While not a repackaged Bluetake, this mouse certainly is the same as the $35 mouse offered by computerlogin.com, which is where I got mine. (which I love and heartily recommend) http://computerlogin.com/sales/productfile/Y_BlueTMouse.html
Of course, all of these mice are repackaged Cellink internals, which for some reason aren't for sale in the USA, but can be had in Asia and Europe for bargain prices. See if you can figure out who else repackages their products, more than you'd think before browsing their inventory.
http://cellink.com.tw/
The one from computerlogin.com does not seem to include support for Windows Mobile, which is what makes this mouse cool.
Any mouse or keyboard that's Bluetooth HID (Human Interface Device) compliant should work with any other Bluetooth HID compliant device (computer, PDA, phone)... That's the beauty of Bluetooth!
Richard indeed is correct. ThinkOutside does include drivers for mobile devices, which are available on their webpage. So, the $45 price difference is the price of the driver CD. Caveat: it'd be interesting to see if they remembered to change the BT-ID of the mouse's chipset in order to get their driver to only work with their version of the mouse. I don't have a BT enabled WindowsCE/PocketPC device so I can't test this.
Let us hope that ThinkOutside provides generic mouse drivers. If so, then tnkgrl is right and we will be able to use any Bluetooth mouse with our PDAs and smartphones! If not, then I guess we'll just have to pay more for that luxury, and likely pay it to ThinkOutside. Does anyone know just how easy/hard it is to develop drivers for mobile devices?
This looks great! I really don't like using the stylus much and this is the perfect alternative for my x30! Now when does it ship exactly? I would like to know that.
I would also like to know when a quality pair of attractive bluetooth stereo headphones (powered through usb) comes out. That way I can listen to music from my ppc without wires! Sweet...
Hey Folks,
Greg van den Dries here, Pres of Think Outside. Love this forum; it's where we get all of our good ideas ;-)
When we first prototyped the product, the ease of use simply blew me away (assuming you're using with a keyboard.)
Being able to surf the web, cut and paste in a word doc all on a XDAII was far more useful than i can describe here.
Also, posts by Roger and Richard (8/9) are both correct. Our driver will only work with our mouse. Driver development is expensive and we need to recoup our investment.
The product uses XP & OS X HID driver as well.
Anyway, not trying to sell anything but wanted to offer some context of why we did this product.
Thanks, Greg very much.
And what about LOOX 720 and your BT Travel Mouse? I don´t see it in the list.
Thank you.
Milan Svec
LOOX 720
CZ
Hi Milan,
We're testing the Loox right now and it seems to work fine-even when combined with the mouse and BT keyboard. One note, you'll need to use Safe mode on the mouse driver with the Loox,otherwise you may get 'mouse trails'. If you use an IR keyboard and BT mouse, no problem at all.
Hi Greg,
I already have that mouse, but no drivers found for Loox 720. Also, how can I let it work in RealVGA mode?? I used just HP 4700 drivers and it works for a while, but when I switched in RealVGA mode, the pointer was moved only in first quarter of the screen.
Hi, Greg,
Thanks for the interest in us "users." I bought mine specifically for my Dell 8600 with XP SP2. It worked the first time, but ever since will not work. It connects, but doesn't move the cursor! I'm not asking for troubleshooting, but would going ahead and installing the drivers on the CD (I have an iPAQ 2215) help with my XP problem? I'm really frustrated it doesn't work with my laptop. The size and weight of the mouse is perfect!