New Mouse

[Naismith]

Now, I have had many mice or trackballs over the years in PC computing since '94 and prior to that the Commodore range of Amiga, C64 & Vic. Including Logitech and Microsoft and Dell. Now, I had been moaning for some time about my latest MS mouse for which I had paid over $100. It was comfy in the hand but inaccurate in use, would drop out of wireless with tedious regularity. Several weeks back SWMBO must have tired of my moans about it and against her usual better judgement went to Walmart and purchased one of their very own branded Blackweb mice. I was very skeptical when she handed it to me given its origin but to be open minded and polite I agreed to would give it a try.

OMG this is one of the nicest mice I have ever had. It is corded, but the braided cord is really long. It is accurate and comfy in the hand. It as many settings in LED colours and DPI ranges etc. It is programmable not that this is something I would ever use and it seems to be very well constructed and has a metal base which gives it some heft. Cudos to Walmart, not something I would normally catch myself saying out loud..... and It was cheap! I sure don't recall and PC sources ever reviewing this thing openly.

Anyway chaps, I thought it was worth informing any who like me are Walmart intolerant but in need of a new mouse. Their George range of clothing is pretty good too... yes yes I know all about sweatshops etc......

https://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/blackwe.../6000196273995

That is all, go about your business

[Ganter]

Thanks for Heads Up mate. Looks good.

However, I'm more than happy with my current flying mouse...

[aeromed202]

Might just treat myself to this. Ever since buying my daughter her first desktop that had wireless board and mouse, I resolved to always stay with corded. The cost of battery replacement was exhausting me and her allowance so out they went to the yard sale. To me the price seems a bit much because I'm pretty skimpy with money where the need is low, and yes, a new mouse is low need. But my current mouse has always had hard button action so I'll probably check this out. Thanks for the post.

[Naismith]

Don't forget this is Canadian pricing, $39.98, we get ripped compared to those below the 49th.

[Ivan]

Hello Naismith,
I am now in the market for a new mouse myself.

I spent a fair amount of time in checking out different manufacturers' and models before settling on this HP Special Edition Star Wars mouse.
My Son is a Star Wars fan and wanted one of these for a while. They finally came down in price at Best Buy and after a while, I bought him one.
When he had his mouse on the computer, I asked to check it out and found that it actually was a pretty good mouse. It worked on pretty much any surface
and the tracking was VERY precise.
Around a month or so later, I decided I wanted an identical mouse for myself even though I thought it was pretty silly with a Star Wars logo and bought one.

So why do I need a new mouse?
Everything was fine for a few months.
A couple days ago, I noticed that the scrolling wheel was acting strangely.
When trying to scroll down, it would sometimes scroll up a line unpredictably.
It gradually got worse.
The battery warning light began flashing a little while later and I replaced the batteries (only the second set I have replaced) but the problem did not go away.

I looked through the 5 reviews for the Blackweb Gaming Mouse.
Wired does not bother me. It is actually my preference.
What bothers me is that 4 of the 5 reviewers described a very short life span for the device ending with a failure.
Mine at least lasted most of a year.

- Ivan.

[Naismith]

Touch wood nearly 1 month in and mine is still performing OK. I take a lot of reviews with a pinch of salt especially when this is a Walmart product and there is a definite anti Walmart thing in the media regarding them. Personally I care not as jot, not all their stuff is garbage. If it fails I will return to my 15 year old Dell mouse in the short term (also made in China).

[LouP]

Looks similar to the gaming mouse that came with my Alienware years ago. I like mine a lot, also. :-)

LouP

[Ivan]

Good Luck, Naismith.

I buy many things from Walmart. It isn't a bias against Walmart.
When I read reviews, I look for the kinds of failures that are being described and the percentage of failures.
A while back, I bought a "Gaming Mouse" from China via eBay.
For looks, I called it the "Klingon Battlecruiser Mouse".
It worked very well for about 2 days and then the dongle started getting very very warm.
After a while, it would shut down.
Unplugging the dongle and letting it cool down would get it to work again for a while but those periods got shorter and shorter and I was noticing that it was getting uncomfortably hot to pull out.
For about $4 - $7 or so, it was not worth chasing down the vendor.

A few months ago, my Wife decided she needed some parental controls over Internet access so that my Son would not spend all his time playing games instead of doing homework.
About a month ago, she ordered and received a Tenda High Speed Dual Band Wireless Router.
By specifications, it was pretty good and it was inexpensive. It was about $30 while the old lower Linksys WRT54G router it was to replace cost about twice that originally.
In looking through the review, I found them to be mediocre in general with about 10% 1-Star (Very Poor).
We spent a couple hours transferring the settings from the old Linksys and the Tenda router seemed to work.

I don't require a constant connection since most of my activity is browsing or downloads.
My Son uses the Internet for gaming and connects to game servers.
What he noticed after a while was that the Tenda router was dropping his connection about ever 30 minutes or so while he was online with his friends.
We are now back to the old Linksys router (which also had the same parental controls available though my Wife never knew it before).

- Ivan.

[Naismith]

I have never understood this 'buying a router thing'. Every ISP I have ever been with since I began PC'ing in 1994 has supplied the required router. Often for free, sometimes billable for 1 year within the agreement. Currently I have a Linksys one which provides 100 Mbits/per sec almost consistently. Don't ask what I pay ...... this is Canada land over being screwed over and government taxation .... It would bring tears to your eyes.

[Ivan]

Hello Naismith,

Here is a more detailed explanation:
Our Internet Service Provider is a Cable Television Company. We actually only use them for Internet and Telephone and don't use their Cable TV at all. I haven't turned on a television in probably at least a year or so.

They supply what is called a Cable Modem which modulates the incoming signal into a line for the Telephone and a single Ethernet line for Internet.
Their Cable Modem recognizes just one MAC (machine) address only, so if I use what is provided by them, I can hang at most one device on their modem. Their modem also does not generate a Wireless (Wi-Fi) signal.

What we do is hang our own device on the end of their modem.
Their modem still sees one device and is happy.
Our router has 4 or 6 wired lines and generates a Wi-Fi signal that other devices such Laptops and iPads, Cell Phones and such can use.
I suppose it is also possible to rent a router from the ISP, but it is much more cost effective to buy your own and you get to choose the features you want.
In fact the ISP also offers the Cable Modem for sale so that there is no monthly rental fee and I believe that we broke even a year or two ago by buying the modem.

Hope that makes more sense.

- Ivan.

[Naismith]

OK cheers, I have 4 routers sitting in the garage unloved and under used.

[n4gix]

What we do is hang our own device on the end of their modem.
Their modem still sees one device and is happy.
Our router has 4 or 6 wired lines and generates a Wi-Fi signal that other devices such Laptops and iPads, Cell Phones and such can use.
I suppose it is also possible to rent a router from the ISP, but it is much more cost effective to buy your own and you get to choose the features you want

Ivan, that's precisely how my LAN is set up, although in my case I have a total of nine CAT5 computers connected + WiFi...

[Ivan]

Hello N4GIX,

We actually had a 8 port version a while back but it wasn't capable of 100 Mbps and also was not wireless which was just fine back in the days when we had DSL for an Internet connection. There were only two of us and two computers being used at any given time.

For what it's worth, the Tenda router is now so bad off that it will only show its SSID for about 10 seconds at a time.
(We plugged it back in when we wanted the higher speed for the device but it did not last long.)
I actually had to do one of my forum posts using my cell phone as a wireless hotspot.....

- Ivan.

[n4gix]

Ian, I have an XFinity cable modem which is connected to a 4 port D-Link router with WiFi here at my main desk. A CAT5 cable runs into my library and is feeding an 8 port D-Link router. The entire LAN is 100Mbs capable, which allows me to quickly export/compile and save projects directly to my main sim testing machine in the library.

[Ivan]

Hello Naismith,
I am now in the market for a new mouse myself.

I spent a fair amount of time in checking out different manufacturers' and models before settling on this HP Special Edition Star Wars mouse.
My Son is a Star Wars fan and wanted one of these for a while. They finally came down in price at Best Buy and after a while, I bought him one.
When he had his mouse on the computer, I asked to check it out and found that it actually was a pretty good mouse. It worked on pretty much any surface
and the tracking was VERY precise.
Around a month or so later, I decided I wanted an identical mouse for myself even though I thought it was pretty silly with a Star Wars logo and bought one.

So why do I need a new mouse?
Everything was fine for a few months.
A couple days ago, I noticed that the scrolling wheel was acting strangely.
When trying to scroll down, it would sometimes scroll up a line unpredictably.
It gradually got worse.
The battery warning light began flashing a little while later and I replaced the batteries (only the second set I have replaced) but the problem did not go away.

I looked through the 5 reviews for the Blackweb Gaming Mouse.
Wired does not bother me. It is actually my preference.
What bothers me is that 4 of the 5 reviewers described a very short life span for the device ending with a failure.
Mine at least lasted most of a year.

- Ivan.

Here is an additional chapter to the story:

I found a pretty good deal for the same mouse as I had before for a pretty similar price.
I figured: I had nearly a year of good service from my HP Star Wars Special Edition Mouse and my Son's was still working fine. What was the chance I would get another defective one?
I ordered a new mouse of the same type as before.
Everything was working fine for just over a month.
Now the mouse does not always track and sometimes the buttons do not work....
(But the scrolling wheel still works great!)

I guess I am still in the market for a new mouse.

- Ivan.

[Naismith]

Aha, this post has erupted again, well I can report my Walmart mouse is still going strong and reliable. Hurrah!

[Naismith]

Oh well today I have to report that thanks to the crappy way we receive electricity in North America, we had a power outage yesterday for about 20 seconds (because it was windy), came back on for about 5 seconds just as PC was rebooting and went out again. That was it for 4 hoursish.
Then it came on again while I was mowing so was unaware of the havoc wrought. Upon my return to the basement i had that "what is the curious burning smell?" sensation ..... turns out it was my USB 2 Hub which was melting. In it were my VKB Joystick which was (phew) unaffected, 3 x Saitek panel things which I have yet to test (if they are dead then they will not be replaced, crappy flakey inefficient things that they be), a 14 year old Saitek X52 Throttle which seems OK and my Walmart Blackweb mouse which sadly died in the event and was very hot. An aside it was connected to the mains via a Costco surge protected adapter. (That'll be going back).

Windows interestingly reported the surge.

Anyway, long and short, I went out to Walmart and got me another (this time Wireless) Blackweb Multi-Task. They no longer had the wired version. This was $29CDN (so way cheaper in USA thank you Mr Trudope) and feels just great and (touch wood) seems to be working just fabuloso. It is a nice size for my sausage fingers and large mitt. Buttons feel very +ve. So off to the bottom drawer with my emergency MS & Dell & Gateway Mice again.

We laugh & scoff at Walmart but I find much of their stuff of pretty high grade and economic. It's just the peculiar customers that have to be navigated past.

PS It even came with a pair of Duracells.

PPS Sorry to ramble.

[sixstrings5859]

Hate crowds so i don't like going to Walmart but they do have great deals. Just bought a stainless cookware set for cheap and they turned out great. Go at least once a week , just don't like being around a lot of people.