This is a service announcement: While in Santa Monica Apple Store, I picked up a Griffin Powermate. Not much more than a USB jog wheel for use with both Windows and OS X, it might seem a bit underwhelming at first, but it is in fact quite useful.
I bought it primarily for use with Photoshop (brush sizes and the like), but also use it for volume control, scrolling and hopefully also video editing soon.
I’ve tried it only under Tiger, and it seems to work perfectly with all the applications I’ve tried it on. It supports normal rotation, ‘clicked’ rotation, click and long click. All of which are customizable on application level. Oh, and it sports a blue light underneath, which can pulsate when your computer sleeps!… Ehm… Neat I guess.
There are however a few problems with it as far as I’m concerned. First of all it’s a bit more flimsy than it looks. I had quite honestly expected a hi-fi-like jog wheel, which feels sturdy when you operate it; which it almost is, but not quite. And secondly it doesn’t click. Since most of the things we do on computers are digital and not analog (ie: scroll 3 lines down), it would make sense if you could feel how much you were telling the computer to move.
That said, the preference panel does have a setting for sensitivity, but it’s not quite good enough.
I like it, the price is a bit heavy for something which isn’t quite as nice as it could have been.
End of soul-less hardware review. I apologize.
Cool. Just wondering, what do you use it for? Just scrolling on web pages and like… volume or is there any other special feature you use it for?
I use my mouse’s scroll wheel. I cannot see how this product could be worth $45 when it just takes up space and has less functionality than a mouse.
Patrick: read the damn entry ;)
Volume changes in iTunes, horizontal scrolling in browsers, system volume muting everywhere, processor load indicator (via third-party app.), page up/down in Word, etc. Too much money? Yes. Worth it for the cool factor? Yes – unequivocally.
This has been on my wanted list for over a year. Glad you reviewed it!
thats interesting, what you said about the digtal/analog thing. the scroll wheel on my mouse and the one on my keyboard are the same as you described the powermate to be. i can adjust sensitivity as well. I must say, since my last mouse clicked when i scrolled the wheel, that I like my new mouse (click-less) a whole lot better, now that im used to it.
I use it a lot for e-mail: Twist for next/previous message, short click for message scroll (same as space bar), long click for flagging. My mouse (and its wheel) take care of fine scrolling and the rest. The trick is:
After a while, you won’t feel it’s there – it just becomes natural.
For extra brownie points, get Tofu, paste large chunks of your RSS backlog into it (I use newspipe, so I can get my news in large digests with 20-30 items apiece) and use it to scroll horizontally on your 20” monitor.
I also miss some sort of tactile feedback when rotating – clicking would be nice, indeed, since you would be able to count brush size steps and the like without glancing at a palette.
I use my Power Mate for anything I can’t use my Apple Wireless Mouse for, namely scrolling, forward/back in web pages, switching tabs, etc.
Bought mine at the MacMall employee price grins of something like $32 or so from the Santa Monica retail store I work at, been happy ever since. The v1.6 software (pre-Tiger, latest version of the driver) worked perfectly with Tiger from day one.
And yes, I tried other Bluetooth mice well before I bought the Power Mate. First I got (still have, never use it) is the MacMice The Mouse BT, which is just garbage. Have never been able to get smooth tracking on it, this is using the Bluetooth module BTO’d for my G5 tower. Nice mouse, crappy construction, even worse tracking. I tried the MacAlly BTMicro next, just as bad, felt nice, but tracking is abysmal, just like the other 99.9999% of Mac-compatible Bluetooth mice.
So why the Power Mate? Cause there’s not a single Bluetooth mouse I’ve tried yet so far for the Mac that has the smooth tracking of Apple’s mouse. Definitely makes a good companion for two-handed mousing/scrolling.
Summary of how I use it: Scrolling up/down, forward/back, changing tabs (cmd-shft-left arrow/right arrow), not much else, don’t need other controls myself quite yet (perhaps laziness is a contributing factor as well).
Also, the PowerMate’s blue LED is programmable. Check out some of the AppleScripts that come with the drivers off their site. When you get bored of it showing you your volume level, you could script events to make your PowerMate flash or pulse or whatever you want… another form of notification, which could be handy.
I found it handy with newer builds of Adium that support AppleScript events, as I’d tend to piss people off ignoring their IM messages when I KVMed to another box… :)
hehe, I totally missed that column… was that added after I commented? Cool though, I think I will stick with my mouse for now.
You know you want to buy another one and turn the laptop into the worlds most expensive “Etch-A-Sketch”
Hah!
hmm ive been looking for a new paper-mate :p
Good comment Greg. Anyways, as long as you are not being paid for the product review…(which I highly doubt) then I am always willing to hear your opinion on products. I have looked getting one of those for my PC, but just could never bring myself to spend the money on something I know I’d only use for volume control and for the “coolness” factor of its look and it is something not many people would have.
The cheapest mouse that I’ve purchased and am currently using right now is the BenQ M310. The RF receiver is a small USB key like module that can hide away in the mouse itself. Basic two button configuration with scroll wheel. Works fine in Tiger (with USBOverDrive) and only cost me like $10 Cdn.
I had a play with one of these the other day and I wasn’t too impressed. It seemed way too flimsy to me … I kept accidently moving it because it was so light.
Anyway, I didn’t play with it for much more than 10 minutes, so I can’t comment too much. First impressions count though, and I while I can see some applications for such a device if it was a bit more solid then I would’ve been more convinced …
Heh, guess your comments on the less-than-solid nature of the PowerMate completely blows their PR description off the site:
But, I’ve been procrastinating over this for a long time and I think it’s time to find the cash for one – especially with the novel idea of using it with Adium :)
Plus I’d never thought of using it for PS brushes – genius :)