Gyration GyroMouse Pro Review

Author : Wayne Date : 18th January 2001

Radeonic would like to thank Gyration, and in particular Marc Harris - Director, Marketing Communications for their invaluable help and generosity in supplying this mouse for review.

Continued:

So now we've taken care of the battery, let's take a quick tour around the external features.

From the top, it looks like any other small, sleek, curvy charcoal grey mouse. It has two buttons, between which (at the front) you may just be able to make out a green LED. This led serves as a low battery indicator, flashing when it's time to replace it in its cradle for a top up. Once in the cradle, the LED also flashes to indicate that charging is taking place.
The cradle actually has two charge modes, trickle and rapid, depending on battery state.

Also visible on the top is the RF channel select. If for some reason cursor movements become erratic, and this will almost certainly be due to interference, then you simply click the select button ( indicated below ), wait three seconds and try again. At no point during testing did I need to use this feature. Holding the RF select button while also hitting the bottom mounted activate button (discussed later) shuts off the power saving on battery life, while hitting any button reactivates it again. I think I'd have preferred to see only the recessed activate button able to power up the mouse again, as the two top buttons are far too easy to press if you've got the mouse packed to carry around with you.

Unfortunately, there is one glaring omission from the top of this mouse....a scroll wheel. Despite it having appeared only fairly recently, many of us have come to rely on that little wheel, and it really seems a shame that the GyroMouse doesn't have one. I suppose technically, this mouse is aimed at the presentation market primarily, a group of people who would have less use for a scroll wheel than we regular users, but by limiting the product to this specialist group, Gyration have cut out a huge slice of regular users who would have bought this for its cool techie appearance rather than its intended functionality. I hope Gyration can find a way to include the wheel in future models.
Having said that, as Gyration's Marc Harris pointed out, there is a method of "parking" the cursor that partly helps with lack of a scroll wheel, and we'll discuss this later. There's also a software suite called " GyroTools" available at extra cost, which includes not only a scroll function, but a total of 75 enhanced presentation tools including things like a simulated laser pointer, a spotlight and a whole host of others.

This additional software does come at a price though, in fact at $99 it costs as much as the mouse itself, but I guess if you need these functions and really want to wow the crowd with a professional looking presentation, it's money well spent.

Switching to the bottom of the mouse, we see where all the action happens. I doubt I need to point out the location of the conventional ball mechanism (B). This operates in the same manner as any other mechanical mouse, and of course, the ball can be removed for cleaning. Below this are the three charge contacts (C) that allow the mouse to take a charge when sat in its cradle a la cordless phone, and finally, above the ball is the activate button (A). This sits in a recess meaning it becomes almost a trigger when the mouse is picked up and used off the desk. Pressing and holding the activate button immediately switches on the motion sensing, allowing all movement to be translated into cursor movements, and conversely, letting go of it deactivates it. This is what was meant earlier by cursor "parking". By positioning the cursor over a scroll arrow and letting go of the activate button, it is then "parked" in that position until you move it by pressing the activate button again, or by sitting the mouse back on the desk and using it conventionally. The two top buttons work regardless of whether the activate button is pressed or not, and this allows you to scroll a screen by clicking the top button while parked. Of course the drawback is that if you need to scroll back again, you need to re-park the cursor over the opposite arrow.
If the idea of all the pressing and releasing is making your finger ache already, then simply double clicking the activate button sets the motion sensing continuously active until it's pressed again.

 

 

 

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