Logitech VX Nano Notebook Mouse Review

VX Nano put alongside the VX Revolution

USB dongles should be like the VX Nano's (bottom) to begin with...

A highlight of the VX Nano noteobok mouse is the 2.4 GHz wireless RF receiver. Every other Logitech wireless mouse uses a wireless receiver that is about the size of a standard USB flash drive. The Nano has what Logitech claims to be the world's smallest USB receiver. In fact it is so small that the portion of the receiver that goes into your USB port is significantly larger than what sticks out of your computer. The main benefit of the tiny USB receiver is that with only seven millimeters of wireless receiver sticking out of your notebook it's virtually impossible to break the receiver from hitting it during transit or use. This means that you can plug the VX Nano wireless receiver in once and never have to mess with it again.

Definitely the most notebook-friendly USB dongle ever

If for any reason you do want to remove the wireless receiver from your notebook, the Nano has a place to store the receiver under the battery door on the bottom of the mouse. Unlike the VX Revolution, storing the wireless receiver doesn't turn off the VX Nano. There is a power switch on the bottom of the mouse that turns the mouse off and on to increase battery life. Logitech also includes a convenient carry pouch for the VX Nano that makes it easy to keep your mouse protected while on the go. The Revolution VX had great wireless range as well; I would put the wireless range about the same as the Revolution. That is impressive considering how much smaller the receiver is for the Nano.

Buttons & Button Mapping
The VX Nano is a five button notebook mouse. In addition to the two main buttons there is a search button right below the scroll wheel that takes you to your search engine of choice with a single press. The scroll wheel itself doesn't click on the Nano, clicking the scroll wheel changes the scroll mode, which we will cover in a bit.

The scroll wheel can be mapped for commands by pressing it left and right. There are also a pair of buttons located to the left of the left mouse button for navigating forward and backwards online that can be remapped if you desire. These buttons are one of my only gripes with the VX Nano. The way they are positioned the buttons are hard to reach. You have to activate them with the finger you use for the main mouse button, rather than your thumb like typical navigation buttons.

You can map all the buttons on the mouse to other functions, except the scroll wheel click inside Logitech's SetPoint application. You can't really remap the right and left button to other commands, but you can swap them for left handed operation. The other mouse buttons including the left and right click of the scroll wheel can be mapped to any keystroke or combination of keystrokes that you desire. You can even map the buttons to control media playback if you wish.

Another nice touch is that the VX Nano is application aware so the buttons function differently when you are running Microsoft Office than when you are in Internet Explorer. You can also fully customize the button assignments within applications as well. You can even add your own programs and set the mouse up to perform specific commands as you desire. One thing that the VX Nano omits is the zoom slider from the VX Revolution. If you were a fan of the zoom button, you could always map the oddly placed navigation buttons to zoom in office applications.

Freewheel Scroll
One of my absolute favorites on the VX Revolution was the free wheel scroll function. The VX Nano's free wheel scroll function is every bit as useful, and easier to use. The thing I didn't like on the VX Revolution was that to change scroll mode you had to pick the mouse up and flip a switch on the bottom. With the VX Nano all you need to do is click the scroll wheel and you can change on the fly between free wheel and click mode. This is a great feature because you can fly through long pages looking for specific information and once you find it you can easily go back to precision click mode to get more control over the page.

VX Nano's Laser Engine
The VX Nano is a laser mouse with 800 dpi sensitivity. That's considerably less than the 2000 dpi setting that I normally work with on my G5 desktop mouse. I can tell a difference when I am using the VX Nano notebook mouse as compared to my G5, but the 800 dpi is more than enough for most users. The point I am trying to make here is that if you are used to working with a mouse that has higher sensitivity, you will notice a difference when you use the VX Nano. The laser also tracks well on a variety of surfaces, in fact it was perfect on every surface I used the mouse on including a mouse pad, desktop, fabric couch arm, my leg, the rubber arm of my desk chair, this thing just plain works so long as you aren't trying to use clear glass or a mirror for your desktop.

If you are a gamer that likes low sensitivity settings, you could even game casually with the VX Nano. If you are a hard core gamer carrying around one of the massive gaming notebooks, you probably want to shop elsewhere for your portable gaming mouse. Accuracy in normal use was spot on and it is also perfectly acceptable in casual games like The Sims. If you are a hard core FPS gamer odds are you won't like this mouse for gaming because the sensitivity and accuracy aren't up to that sort of use.

Connectivity & Battery Life
Logitech says that the batteries in the VX Nano notebook mouse will last up to six months of use and maybe even longer if you use the on/off switch to keep the mouse from coming on when not in use. Inside SetPoint it said that the pair of AAA Duracell batteries the mouse came with was good for 173 days of use. That's not quite six months, but it is pretty close. How long the batteries last will also depend on how much you use the mouse, if you work with the mouse eight hours a day, don't expect to see a battery life of six months.

The connectivity with the Nano wireless receiver is fantastic, I could go down the hall with a wall between the mouse and the receiver and the mouse still had more than enough signal strength to continue functioning normally. If you give presentations and prefer to be a across the room from your notebook, the VX Nano will operate perfectly. I was able to get up to 30 feet away from the receiver in my testing without issue. I use WiFi in my home and noticed no interference with of WiFi with the mouse or vice versa.

Final Thoughts
What's not to like about the Logitech VX Nano notebook mouse, it has everything that you really need in a notebook mouse including great features, great battery life, portable size, and great connectivity. If I had to choose between the VX Nano and VX Revolution or any other notebook mouse for that matter, I would go with the VX Nano hands down. The Nano receiver is a stroke of genius and is another of the features like the free wheel scroll that will be copied by other manufacturers. Overall, the VX Nano is just a great mouse for your notebook, the only people who may not like it are those with really big hands and those wanting more sensitivity than the 800 dpi laser sensor can provide such as hard core gamers.

By Shane McGlaun, Contributing Editor