So, you must be wondering, what’s next? Well, notebook, laptop and netbook market is growing rapidly in past few years and almost everybody has one of those. Every laptop or netbook has touchpad but mouse is more “natural” way of interaction. So, new type of mouse devices were needed and delivered: notebook mouse. It had to be small, preferably wireless and easy to carry around.  Consequently, those mouse devices had to be able to operate on variety of surfaces where glass and very smooth surfaces became a real problem. Logitech did a study among their users, and around 40% of them stated that they have working table with glass surface, and more than 47% stated that they use mouse on glass surface at least once a week.

Darkfield laser technology improves existing laser mouse devices thanks to different way of surface analysis.  Optical mouse devices have light source that is casting light on surface that is scanned by small sensor behind optical lens. That “picture” is processed frame by frame and direction and speed of movement is calculated. With laser mouse devices we have similar technology, but with few differences. Instead of LED that is used as light source, laser mouse devices use laser as light source. Since lasers are much more precise than LEDs with far less light dissipation, detection of movement can be much better. This is reason why laser mouse devices are so precise.

Unfortunately both of these technologies have serious problems when used on glass and extremely smooth surfaces. Glass is, in most cases, perfectly flat and almost 100% transparent so laser beam cannot find referent points for movement detection. Darkfield technology solves those problems by detecting small imperfections of surface against black background. Of course come limitations are present, so these mouse devices cannot be used on glass surfaces thinner than 4mm. All other surfaces does not present slightest problems to Darkfield models.

At this moment Logitech presented two Darkfield mouse devices: Performance Mouse MX and Anywhere Mouse MX. Performance Mouse MX is intended for desktop users while Anywhere Mouse MX is best suited for laptop users. Packaging for both devices is almost identical, where Performance Mouse MX has slightly larger box. Performance Mouse MX came with one AA rechargeable battery, USB micro receiver, USB extension cord for receiver and one USB cable for mouse charging. When mouse is charging with USB cable, it should operate at the same time, but our sample could not work and charge at the same time. All cables, AC power supply, CD with drivers and manuals are placed in elegant leather pouch. Anywhere Mouse MX has only micro USB receiver and two AA batteries along with leather pouch, CD and manuals.

Performance Mouse MX is successor of Revolution and MX1100 models. Its design resembles a lot at those two. Form is almost identical, but some details are redesigned, like buttons locations and small cosmetic details. It belongs to “fatty” mouse devices and perfectly sits in almost any hand. It has 4-way scroll with option to switch between free-spin and click-to-click scroll mode. This can be done with button located behind the scroll wheel. On the left side are located back and forward buttons with zoom button right bellow them. Behind those is located battery indicator. On the left side, near the thumb position, is present another programmable button. Mouse is made in standard dark grey color with black details and metallic grey stripe that goes along the contours of the mouse. It really looks great. At the front is micro USB connector. At the bottom is present only power switch and battery compartment.

Anywhere Mouse MX is standard notebook mouse. It also has 4-way scroll, while scroll mode change button is located below scroll wheel so you have to press scroll wheel to change it. Behind scroll wheel is located one programmable button. This mouse resembles VX Nano, except it is slightly larger. On the left side are, traditionally positioned, back and forward buttons. Mouse is powered by two AA batteries with interesting power sliding button mechanism at the bottom. 

Few minutes after we connected these mouse devices there was no doubt in their build quality and especially quality of sensor. Modest conclusion is that these mouse devices are fantastic. Of course, after initial tests we tested them on glass table and they operated even in those conditions like it was any other ordinary surface.

Only “problem” that we noticed with these mouse devices is with smaller Anywhere Mouse MX model. With our sample, buttons were a bit noisier, especially back and forward buttons. Besides that, those two buttons were little bit too resilient to pressure, so unusually hard pressure should be applied to activate them.

With Performance Mouse MX there were no similar problems. Button clicks were almost silent, but still you will get enough feedback to know when button is pressed. Only problem on this sample was with button for scroll mode change. When this button was pressed left and right mouse buttons were moved few additional millimeters apart. Everything operated correctly but this really looked like on mouse devices that belong to much lower price group.