Best wireless mice for Chromebooks
Which wireless mice are best for Chromebooks?
While your Chromebook’s trackpad works well enough for most situations, there are some tasks for which a wireless mouse is better.
Whether you need a wireless mouse to scroll through long documents faster, or to perform fine manipulations, there’s a great wireless mouse out there with your name on it. Here are a few of our favorites.
- Microsoft Touch Mouse
- Logitech Wireless Mouse M320
- Logitech Performance MX
- AmazonBasics Wireless Mouse with Nano Receiver
- Logitech Marathon M705
- Logitech MX Master
Microsoft Touch Mouse
The Microsoft Touch Mouse is unique in that it has no buttons or a scroll-wheel, yet it functions as though it has them.
Instead of pressing physical buttons or using a scroll-wheel, you tap and swipe, much like you would on the touchscreen of your phone.
It is comfortable to use with either hand and has the benefit of Microsoft’s Bluetrack technology, which helps it work on pretty much any surface.
If you’re looking for a unique mouse that works well with either hand and on most surfaces, then the Microsoft Touch Mouse might be the one for you.
See at Amazon
Logitech Wireless Mouse M320
Available in black, blue, red, and two-tone gray and yellow, the Logitech Wireless Mouse M320 has received positive reviews from users and reviewers alike for its long battery life and its functionality.
Logitech states that this mouse will last up to two years on a single AA battery. Mileage may vary, but in general, users report that the battery does last a while — maybe a year or more on average.
Another benefit of this mouse is that its curved, asymmetric shape and rubber surface make it comfortable to use for long periods of time.
If you want a wireless mouse that has a long battery life, is comfortable to hold, and comes in different colors, then check this one out.
See at Amazon
Logitech Performance MX
Logitech’s Performance MX is meant for people who do a lot of mouse work on a daily basis. Reviewers and consumers alike praise it for its well-crafted, durable design and for its superb functionality.
Made for right-handed users, its sculpted shape fits easily and comfortably in your hand and if you use your mouse a lot, then you’ll really appreciate how good it feels to grip. Its Darkfield Laser also tracks on most surfaces, including glass.
This mouse has a rechargeable battery that you can charge either by connecting it to your Chromebook via the USB cable it comes with, or by connecting it to its wall charger, which is also included. If you plug it into your Chromebook, you can continue to use it while it is charging.
If you use your mouse a lot, want one with a rechargeable battery, and you want it to work on glass, then consider the Logitech Performance MX.
See at Amazon
AmazonBasics Wireless Mouse with Nano Receiver
The AmazonBasics Wireless Mouse is a 2.4 GHz mouse that connects to your Chromebook via a small USB transceiver. Customer reviews state that it works well and is easy to use, providing an amazing value for a bargain price.
This optical mouse comes with a one year warranty, so if anything goes wrong, you can always get a replacement.
If you’re looking for an inexpensive wireless mouse that does the job, then the AmazonBasics Wireless Mouse is for you.
See at Amazon
Logitech Marathon M705
The Logitech Marathon M705 is another wireless mouse that has received accolades from reviewers and consumers raving about well it works and how long it lasts on a single set of AA batteries.
Designed to conserve battery power, this mouse can last as long as three years on one set of batteries. Customers who have been using it for a while confirm that it indeed uses less power than comparable mice.
Sculpted for right-handed people, the Logitech Marathon M705 remains comfortable to hold, even after many hours of use.
In addition, its laser-tracking keeps its clicks precise and gives you the ability to whiz through long documents and web pages with ease.
If you are looking for a mouse with a long battery life that is comfortable to hold for long periods of time, then the Logitech Marathon M705 is a great choice.
See at Amazon
Logitech MX Master
The Logitech MX Master is the master of all wireless mice because of its ability to track well even on glossy surfaces and its long battery life. Reviewers and users agree that it’s a top-notch wireless mouse.
With a shape sculpted for your right hand, it is comfortable to use all day. In fact, it was designed for people who use their mice a lot, all day, every day.
It has a rechargeable battery, so you never have to replace it. Simply connect it to your Chromebook using its USB cable and continue using it while it charges. If you don’t have an extra USB port, you can use its wall-charger unit instead. Either way, four minutes gives you four hours of use and a full charge will last you up to 40 days.
If you’re looking for a wireless mouse that will work, even on glass, and has a long-lasting rechargeable battery, the Logitech MX Master is a great choice.
See at Amazon
Which wireless mice are your favorites?
We’ve looked high and low for great wireless mice that work with the Chromebook, but we’re only human, and we might have missed something super-amazing. Tell us all about it in the comments below.
Chromebooks
- The best Chromebooks
- Should you buy a Chromebook?
- Google Play is coming to Chromebooks
- Acer Chromebook 14 review
- Join our Chromebook forums
Cleaning out the storage on your phone is a monthly task
In last week’s poll we asked how often you clean out the storage on your phone. Phones have become a hub for everything for keeping photos to being able to quickly check bank account balances. Their storage capacity isn’t unlimited though, and eventually you’re going to run out of room. That’s why we wanted to know how often you clean out the storage on your phone.
In first place, with 25.8% of the vote, was “I like to clean my phone out once a month or so.” Second place wasn’t far behind, with “When I realize I have apps installed I don’t use” grabbing up 18.7%. Just behind in third place with 18.5% is “when performance starts to suffer.”
“I only clean out my phone when it becomes necessary” managed to take fourth place with 15.3% of the vote. Fifth place grabbed up 11.1% vote with “when I run out of room.” In last place is “I don’t clean out the storage on my phone if I can help it,” with 10.6% of the vote.
Do you like to clean out the storage on your phone regularly, or do you prefer to put it off? Let us know in the comments below!
HP made an 11-inch Chromebook with a touchscreen display
Hewlett-Packard is adding the Chromebook 11 G5 to its lineup of Chrome OS-powered machines – and the most interesting thing about this laptop is that it comes with a touch display.
This is HP’s first Chromebook in the 11-inch range to offer a touchscreen. It has a 11.6-inch screen with an HD Anti-glare display (1366 x 768), though you can upgrade to an HD IPS touchscreen panel with Gorilla Glass. It features a 1.6gHz Intel Celeron N3060 processor, which HP claims is powerful enough to support video calls and video playback, and it should last 11 hours before needing a recharge.
Other features include an HP TrueVision HD webcam at 720p resolution, 2GB or 4GB of RAM, 16GB or 32GB storage options, two USB 3.1 ports, and a headphone jack. Also, the Chromebook 11 G5 weighs just 2.51 lbs (1.13 kg). There’s also a non-touch model available. It weighs 2.61 lbs and lasts up to 12 hours and 30 minutes. For comparison purposes, Apple’s 11-inch MacBook air weighs 2.38 lbs.
HP has priced this PC starting at $189. It’ll be available through HP partners in July, with wider availability in stores by October. And, yes, for those of you wondering, the Chromebook 11 G5 will run Android apps.
HP
Facebook Slideshow: How to create quick movies from your pics and vids
Facebook wants you to share more stuff on Facebook – so it’s rolling out a new feature designed to do just that.
The social network thinks video is the answer to all its woes. According to The Information, Facebook has experienced a decline in original, personal sharing (it’s down 21 per cent year over year as of mid-2015), but Live Video and video seem to be helping. People are no longer keen to post text statuses about what’s going on in their lives, but they will post stories full of videos and pics to their Snapchats, for instance.
Facebook isn’t Snapchat, though. Users aren’t limited to 10-second clips they can overlay with doodles, text, filters, etc. But they can post 20-minute videos and boring, static photos to albums. While Facebook Live is slowly adding some Snapchat-like features, the social network still has to make the process of posting videos and pics much more fun not only for users but also for people looking at this stuff in their feeds.
That’s why Facebook is now pushing an automatic movie-maker feature called Slideshow. It’s similar to the new Memories feature coming to iOS 10’s Photos app, and it’s also a lot like the Movies Assistant feature in Google Photos. Slideshow, which originally launched in August as part of Facebook’s photo-sharing app Moments, basically takes your recent videos and pics and spices them up a bit.
Facebook Slideshow: What is it?
Sharing videos and pics are an essential part of Facebook. Think about it: seeing and hearing your friends is a lot more appealing than reading statues about them. So, to make sharing your life much more fun, Facebook is rolling out a new feature called Slideshow. It’s an easy way to create and share slideshows of, for instance, that amazing trip you took over the weekend to your family’s lake house.
You don’t need to download an entirely new app to use Slideshow. The Facebook app will sync with your phone’s libraries and is able to detect when you’ve taken five or more videos/pics in the last 24 hours. Facebook will then gather the media into a slideshow and create a preview of it at the top of your News Feed. You can ignore it or post it. The choice is yours. You can even customise it.
The idea is you can now jazz up your lame videos and pics and turn them into something worth sharing (and watching).
Facebook Slideshow: How does it work?
- Open the Facebook app for iOS. You do not need to download or use Facebook’s Moments app.
- If Slideshow has arrived via an over-the-air update to your Facebook app, and if you’ve taken more than five photos or videos over 24 hours, Facebook will show you a preview of an automatically-created slideshow at the top of your News Feed.
- You can tap on the preview to launch the Slideshow feature within Facebook, where you’ll then see a menu bar at the bottom of your screen with four tabs: add more photos/videos from your libraries, add a theme, edit your slideshow, and more/settings.
- There are currently 10 slideshow themes to choose from, including Nostalgic, Playful, Night Out, Birthday, Epic, Thankful, Tropical, Bollywood, and Amped. Each theme comes with its own style and music and transitions. More themes will be added later.
- Under the edit tab, you will see options to customise your slideshow by changing the order or layout, titling it, or tagging friends.
- Once you’re done, hit the Done button at the top and share your slideshow to your News Feed. Or, you could tap cancel and forget it.
Note: If you don’t see a Slideshow preview at the top of your News Feed, try finding a friend’s slideshow in your News Feed and clicking “Try It”.
Facebook Slideshow: When will it be available?
Facebook is now rolling out Slideshow to all iOS users around the world.
Build a strong IT career with the Linux Complete System Administrator Bundle (over 90 per cent off)
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The 2015 Linux Jobs Report indicates that 97 per cent of hiring managers prioritize Linux talent in their hiring decisions, while 44 per cent of hiring managers are more likely to hire a candidate with Linux certification.
When you’re ready for a serious career upgrade via Linux, you can step into high-level learning with The Complete Linux System Administrator Bundle, now over 90 per cent off from Pocket-lint Deals.
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Linux is growing rapidly with clear reason, and experts are needed to utilize the foundation for a wide range of architectures and hardware. There are presently 50,000+ open job listings focusing on Linux on dice.com – all you need to dive into virtually endless opportunity is completion of The Complete Linux System Administrator Bundle.
Across the seven included courses, you’ll learn everything from how to construct and manage a Red Hat Linux system to the methods for writing and debugging Bash script, and beyond. You’ll develop a head for AWK programming, to extract and report on data, while learning to differentiate between Linux & UNIX operating systems. And that’s just the tip of your Linux-mastery iceberg.
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Get started today down the path to high-level career potential with The Complete Linux System Administrator Bundle, now £47.91 ($69) from Pocket-lint Deals.
Microsoft Studios shutters Xbox Fitness at-home workouts
Xbox Fitness has provided an at-home workout with the help of the trusty game console and Microsoft’s Kinect since 2013. However, the exercise option won’t be around much longer. Microsoft Studios announced that the console-driven workouts would be shuttered July 1, 2017, citing the effort required to ship regular updates to keep the gym routines fresh. The company says it has “given much consideration to the reality updating the service regularly in order to sustain it.”
The workout option was part of the Xbox One on Day One initiative to inspire console owners to get a little more active. In the two and a half years since its launch, the title added celebrity trainers and nixed the Kinect requirement. Leaderboards and the option to purchase and download workouts were features that Microsoft Studios hoped would keep things interesting, but in the end, the fitness project required too many resources to continue the regular updates it required. Starting today, users will no longer be able to purchase additional content. The “Free with Gold” label will be removed in December ahead of the official shutdown next summer.
Via: MSPowerUser
Source: Microsoft Studios
Expect a settlement in the Volkswagen emissions fiasco tomorrow
A federal judge has given Volkswagen until Tuesday, June 28th, to present a plan aimed at making amends in the diesel emissions scandal that’s been dogging the company for nearly a year. Reuters and Bloomberg report that the settlement will cost VW $15 billion. In September, regulators discovered VW was using emissions-concealing software in roughly 500,000 of its diesel vehicles sold since 2008.
Last week, the AP claimed VW would settle the scandal for $10.2 billion, and the new reports build on that figure. According to Reuters and Bloomberg, VW will pay just over $10 billion to buy back vehicles using “defeat devices” that hide their true emissions production. Owners of affected VW vehicles could receive up to $10,000 apiece, Bloomberg says — that’s double the $5,000 figure originally reported in April.
Plus, VW will spend $2 billion on clean-emissions technology, and pay $2.7 billion in fines to the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board, Bloomberg says. VW will also settle with individual states for another $400 million, the site says.
In April, VW estimated the fiasco would cost $18.2 billion to resolve. The company saw an operating loss of $4.61 billion in all of 2015.
Source: Bloomberg, Reuters
Dell made a 70-inch touchscreen for schools
Forget chalkboards and whiteboards in the classroom — Dell thinks tech is the answer. It’s launching a 70-inch touchscreen, the C7017T, that’s designed to replace interactive whiteboards in schools and boardrooms. You probably wouldn’t want this at home given the 1080p resolution, but it can handle 10-finger touch and includes two pens for collaborative sessions. More importantly, it’s downright frugal compared to Microsoft’s 84-inch Surface Hub. Dell’s $5,000 price doesn’t include a computer, but it’s still going to take a much smaller bite out of the school budget.
Source: Dell (1), (2)
Facebook debuts hand-picked event listings in 10 cities
In its latest attempt to seem a little more human and a little less algorithmic, Facebook debuted a new feature Monday that suggests interesting events picked by real, live humans in 10 major US cities — even if those events aren’t on Facebook. As TechCrunch reports, iOS users in San Francisco, New York, Chicago and elsewhere will see the cleverly named “Featured Events” listings at the top of the events tab starting today. Unlike “suggested” events, which are based on your friends’ interests and RSVPs, Facebook has actually built out a team of curators to hand-pick events in each city.
According to Facebook Events product manager Aditya Koolwal, the new feature is meant to be “like a weekend or weekly digest of cool stuff that you can do in your city,” and is designed to give people enough lead time to spot an upcoming event and invite their friends. For this initial rollout, the cities include Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. The listings will also focus on large, public events with broad appeal so there’s no fear that your 10-person backyard cocktail party will suddenly get featured and go viral. Although it won’t be selling the listings just yet, it’s possible that Facebook will monetize the listings in the future. And, after that whole Trending Topics mess, Koolwal says the new Events listings won’t feature anything political or religious in nature either.
Finally, as Recode points out, this is a relatively minor change for Facebook, but it could put another huge dent in print media and smaller city blogs where event listings never quite disappeared.
Source: TechCrunch, Recode
Apple Pay Expands to More Parking and Hotel Apps
Apple Pay has expanded to an additional trio of parking services and one hotel booking service over the past week.
Parking Panda, an app that allows you to find and reserve parking in advance, was updated last week to allow customers to use Apple Pay.
Parking Panda is offering customers a 10 percent discount off purchases made with Apple Pay between now and September 1. The discount is automatically applied after choosing Apple Pay at checkout. Apple Pay customers will also be eligible to win a free month or a free year of parking along with other prizes.
Parking Panda is available at thousands of parking garages, lots, and valets in 40 U.S. cities, including Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. The app can also be used in Toronto, the most populous city in Canada.
Parking Panda is free on the App Store [Direct Link] for iPhone and iPad.
Likewise, PayByPhone has updated its app with Apple Pay support along with location aware imagery, personal reminders, and smart notices.
PayByPhone, used by over 12 million motorists, allows you to find and reserve parking in advance, add more time remotely, and stay up to date about local events and parking-related news. The app is available in over 300 cities globally, such as San Francisco, London, Paris, Geneva, and Vancouver.
PayByPhone is also offering U.S. customers that pay with Apple Pay a chance to automatically win a free month of parking until September 1.
PayByPhone Parking is free on the App Store [Direct Link] for iPhone.
Meanwhile, parking reservation app SpotHero now enables drivers to use Apple Pay to find and pay for parking without creating a SpotHero account. The app can be used at more than 2,500 garages, lots, and valets in 13 major U.S. cities, including Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.
SpotHero is free on the App Store [Direct Link] for iPhone.
Last, last-minute hotel booking app HotelTonight has also been updated to let customers find and book a hotel room using Apple Pay without creating a HotelTonight account. HotelTonight can be used to book hotel rooms up to a week in advance at more than 15,000 hotels in over 500 destinations worldwide.
HotelTonight is offering first-time customers that use Apple Pay $25 off their first $135+ reservation using promo code APPLEPAY25 until September 1. All customers can also redeem promo code TRAVELTUESDAY on any Tuesday through August 30 to get $20, $40 or $100 off bookings of $150+ when using Apple Pay.
HotelTonight is free on the App Store [Direct Link] for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.
When making in-app purchases, Apple Pay is compatible with the iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone SE, iPad Air 2, iPad mini 3, iPad mini 4, and both the 9.7-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro.
Related Roundup: Apple Pay
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