Logitech MX1000 Review - The battery
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Other changes? One is the battery itself. While the previous design used rechargeable AA batteries, the MX1000 instead has switched to a permanent Lithium Ion pack. There's a couple things to be said about this. First of all, you can't change the battery when it dies. That seems like a real pisser, until you actually read the documentation. The battery is rated for 500 full charge cycles in it's lifespan.
That still doesn't seem like a big number, until you do some math. After my initial charge to capacity of the mouse, I've been using it pretty steady. In fact, you can hardly get it out of my hand. I normally prefer to use my SUN workstation for menial tasks because it's dead quiet (even my water cooled box still makes some noise, moving air isn't totally free), and doesn't tend to do strange things because it's the only computer I have that's not overclocked to the edge of stability. But in the interest of doing adequate testing, I've instead been using a normal PC with the MX1000. And in a week with it, I still haven't caused the charge to drop a single bar on the meter that's included on it.
So, let's assume that it's suddenly going to die in two weeks of consistant use, just to be pessimistic. We'll also assume that Logitech is overstating the batteries abilities to withstand charging cycles, and give it a 400 rating. 400 cycles x 2 weeks is 800 weeks worth of use before the battery might die. In case you weren't aware, there are 52 weeks in a year.... giving this a lifetime rating of over 15 years.
I somehow doubt that the person who likes this mouse the most will still be using it in 15 years. For all we know, USB ports might no longer exist by then. Or we might just "jack in" Matrix style.
One of the things Logitech has done with power control in addition to the new battery style is change the way it handles wake up and shut down. The much older "Cordless Mouseman Optical," one of the first cordless optical mice, is horrible as far as getting it to "wake up" when you first start using it from its base state. The LED takes its sweet time powering up to full beam, and then figuring out what's going on.
In comparison, the MX1000 seems like it's just always on. The difference is that obvious. As well, the Cordless Mouseman Optical never seems to go fully asleep, and will still eat into your battery life even when it's sitting at your desk while you are spending time at home instead of work. The MX1000 has a discreet switch on the button of the mouse you can use to shut it off, where previous Logitech designs required you to pull the batteries themselves. I never bothered to use that, since I was TRYING to kill the charge, but the mouse seems to enter a much deeper sleep state. I couldn't notice the laser firing at all.
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