Mousing
The laser mechanism is supposed to be much better than the standard optical mechanism. So far the only improvement I have noticed is the mouse does not cause the pointer to jump. All optical mice I have used so far, always had the pointer jumping problem. Other than that, the pointer movement is the same as an optical mouse which is good.
All the buttons and the scroll wheel work well.
The scroll wheel can also be pushed left and right which act like buttons. These can be configured with the included SetPoint software. The default setting is to scroll left and right.
Strangely the default configuration for the middle button is to activate zoom rather than being a middle button.
I have played first-person shooters and real-time strategy games with it and it works great.
Bluetooth
Bluetooth means one extra USB port for me. Of course this is only applicable if the computer comes with inbuilt Bluetooth. The connection was very easy when following the instructions.
When I was setting up Bluetooth on my current PC for the first time, a warning came up saying that Bluetooth and Wi-Fi can interfere with each other and cause disconnections. After years of using Bluetooth and Wi-Fi I never knew about this. It is definitely a topic to consider when choosing whether to use Bluetooth. Luckily for me I have not had any issues of them interfering with each other.
One disadvantage with a Bluetooth mouse is, it takes longer for the mouse to connect to the PC. On boot, the mouse takes several seconds before I can move the pointer on the login screen.
Batteries
The V470 uses two AA batteries which makes the mouse slightly heavier than my old optical mouse. It is still very easy to pick up and shift thanks to the ergonomic shape.
There is an on/off switch to save batteries when the mouse is not being used.
There is an LED indicator that blinks blue when the mouse is connecting and blinks red when the batteries are low. A pair of fully charged Typ.2,000mAh Eneloops lasted me about 2 months. From my timings, the LED started flashing red at around 557 hours. The mouse completely stopped working at around 560 hours. These timings are not the most accurate since I do sometimes leave the timer running when the mouse is off, and sometimes I turn off the timer and forget to turn off the mouse.
Other Stuff
There is no visible light underneath. It uses an infra-red laser.
Biases
Before this V470 I have been using a standard 2 button + scroll wheel optical Dell mouse for the past eight years. The Dell mouse has started showing problems but eight years of service shows how good the Dell mouse was.
I have used Bluetooth connections since 2006 and in Wi-Fi environments.
Update 01/12/2012
I have encountered a strange problems with the mouse recently. When the PC comes out of hibernation or stand by, sometimes the mouse movement is very laggy. I have tried turning the mouse on and off, restarting the computer and re-registering the bluetooth connection it still lags badly. The only solution I have found so far is I need to shutdown the PC completely and turn it back on. Everything is good after a full shutdown. Not sure if the problem is with the mouse or my PC.
Update 02/01/2013
In the past month the left button click has been problematic. On some days holding down the left button does not work, so dragging just lets go and sometimes a single click becomes a double click. This happens on some days and other days it works fine. I am not sure whether this is the start of the known issue stated here. I am not prepared to open the mouse just yet, but it is annoying when I cannot drag and drop and double clicks are happening everywhere.
Update 12/03/2013
I am unsure if this is a problem with the mouse or my PC or Windows 7, but half the time when I bring the PC out of hibernation, the mouse would not work. The easiest fix I found for this was to turn off and on the bluetooth radio on the PC.
