The Ubuntu Wireless Mouse is a new device sold through the official Canonical store. It's a bizarre-looking mouse and we’ll take it for a spin to see if it's really something that people might want or if it's just a nightmare.

The Canonical store has been offering branded items for many years, ranging from simple stuff like t-shirts to more dedicated products like a subscription to Ubuntu Advantage. Now they have just added a new Ubuntu-branded mouse to their collection so we naturally wanted to try it out. It took a while to get to our headquarters, but it arrived and we had a chance to use it.

First of all, you will notice the strange shape. Some of the Ubuntu users have expressed doubt about that shape and wondered if it will create a problem for people who are used with devices that are a little higher and that follow the natural curvature of the hand. I can tell you that it's not really an issue and that the flat shape doesn't cause any kind of pain. At least, it didn't affect me in any way after a week of intense usage.

The second aspect users, myself included, have noticed was the fact that it resembles the Magic mouse from Apple quite a lot, but that's also not accurate. The truth is that, once we got the mouse, we saw that it's very different from the one Apple sells, in terms of usage, building materials, functions, and even shape. The bottom line is that the image posted in the Canonical store makes it resemble the mouse from Apple, but that's not really the case.

I used the Ubuntu Wireless Mouse for almost a week and I wanted to post this review much earlier, but I needed to check the battery life. It was a good decision because it provided me with some interesting facts. And now to the features.

Ubuntu Wireless Mouse from the side

Before going into the details about the pros and cons of the Ubuntu Wireless Mouse, I'll just go through a short list of features so that the user knows something more about the device. It comes with two dongles that are also batteries. When one discharges, you just switch it to the one that was plugged in. It's a neat little trick, but it has its downsides.

Also, the scroll wheel is placed on the side so you can access it with your thumb. It's Ok and it only took me about a day or so to get used to it. That's pretty much it in terms of uniqueness, everything else is just the same as in all the other devices on the market. It also comes with a small leathery pouch.

The Good

First of all, you have to know from the start that this is going to be a very short list. The mouse has very few redeeming qualities and it's not hard to name them all. I noticed right away that it's an extremely light mouse. It's almost ridiculous, especially since it's powered by a battery. It feels good in the hand and it's a pleasure to move it. Despite the strange shape, the mouse is not hard to use and you get used to it pretty fast. So much so that a normal mouse will no longer feel natural after you transition back. The dongles / batteries are another cool feature, connecting the mouse instantaneously. There is no sync option and it worked on three different Linux distros, but there wasn't any real doubt that it will have a problem with various Linux OSes. The last thing on the list is the design and the illuminated logo, which look absolutely awesome. Everyone who saw the mouse was struck at how beautiful it looks. The problems is that its beauty is skin deep and the rest of the issues easily outweigh all of this.

The Bad

There are so many problems with the Ubuntu Wireless Mouse that I don't know what to choose first. I figure that the lack of the middle click button is the main problem. After using it for so many years, going back is a terrible choice. It's implemented in so many aspects of my daily routine that it's impossible to stop using right now, so I went into Dconf and configured middle click to be activated when I used both mouse buttons as the same time. This gets us to the scroll wheel and the size of the mouse. The presentation photo makes it look small, but it's actually quite long. This is a problem. I have a medium-size hand, and if i use it comfortably, I am barely reaching the scroll wheel. In fact, I changed the way I'm holding the mouse just to properly reach and use the scroll wheel. This gets us to the two buttons, which are on the bottom as you would expect. The left click, which is the most used, works very well, but the right click is hard and you need to press harder to make it work. This might make you press both buttons at the same time which, in my case, means a middle click. This brings us to the building materials, which are very cheap. It might look nice from afar, but once you pick it up, you will notice that it's just really poor plastic. I'm not saying that it should be metal, at least not for its cost, but make it better and make it more expensive. I would still pay. The cheap materials are also reflected in the batteries. This is just a Chinese mouse re-branded with the Ubuntu logo, and on the official website it says that the batteries are 100 mAh, but on the leaflet it says that they are just 20 mAh. The fact that a battery drained in just two days of normal usage tells me that the leaflet is probably correct. There is also the issue of sensibility, which is off the charts, and don't talk to me about scrolling speed. It's abysmal. I had to change parameters in Firefox because it was too slow, but I didn't even bother with rest of the system. The last problem on the list is the fact that it has no "Off" button, but they got this covered, or so they think. In fact, the mouse closes if you leave it a few minutes alone and you can only wake it by clicking on one of the buttons. Even this function is intermittent and not precise. Also, to make things worse, it activated much faster on Windows and it works much better.

Conclusion

Ubuntu Wireless Mouse looks good on paper and in the only image posted on the website, but the lack of functions, the poor battery power, and all the other issues are just too much. I feel like Canonical should have done its homework and think twice before putting its brand on such a poor device. It does them no good to have this in the wild. It's beneath them and it's not representative for the quality of their products.