> Once you've experienced a proper wireless mouse, going back is impossible. They're so freeing. You can move in any direction and amount with NO resistance. Never fight the cable again. It's the way mice were meant to be.

I have used a wireless mouse (I have one right now cause it's what work bought me). It is no better than a wired mouse.

I'm also very happy to never charge it or reconnect it to my computer through some GUI.

The vast majority of wireless mice and keyboards can work without using a GUI. And with your usage of "reconnect", with my Bluetooth mice I never had to use the GUI to reconnect it, they just reconnected automatically when I turned the mouse back on. I did have to pair it originally on the computer using the computer's Bluetooth settings, but that's only for Bluetooth devices and only for the initial setup. Mice and keyboards with dongles never required any kind of GUI and most of them even worked fine in low level environments like BIOSes on older machines and what not.

My $20 wireless keyboard/mouse combo has run for years off of one set of batteries, and is instantly recognized by any OS the moment you plug in the dongle.

Agree about the dongle thing, but years on a single set of batteries? That has to be an exaggeration, that or you somehow found the glorious golden mouse crafted by the gods themselves. I've never seen any device last for years on a single set of batteries, not even the lowest power of devices.

I used to use a M705 mouse from Logitech. It has a three-year rated battery life on a single pair of regular AA batteries.

https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/mice/m705-wireless-m...

This M550 mouse is rated for two years using the Bolt wireless adapter.

https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/mice/m550-signature-...

The K400 keyboard+trackpad I have routinely lasts at least couple of years despite only rated for 18 months, but it didn't get as much usage as a regular kb+m as it was mostly used as a couch keyboard or as a quick debugging combo for working on machines on a workbench.

https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/keyboards/k400-plus-...

My parents' Casio calculator is 40 years old, and still on its original battery. It does not have solar power.

It is still used weekly or so!

I think my Logitech trackball goes for months between charges.

Afraid it's true. The mouse says it's a Logitech M185 and runs on a single AA. The keyboard is a K270 and uses 2 AAAs (I think, I taped the battery door shut since it kept falling off). I got them along with my work laptop when I started my current job five years ago, and I've only had to change them once each.

I think I may have also replaced mouse or keyboard or both a while back, with identical models, so call that two battery changes in five years, if you want to be conservative. Maybe it helps that they're disposable instead of rechargeable.

No, it is correct, nothing magical about it. The Logitech M705 works for years without battery replacement.

If you travel a lot you might have to replace the USB dongle once a year, in my experience($5).

> The battery also lasts a week or two, with some clever software tuning so it runs at a lower polling rate when not playing games. It charges in an hour or two.

Granted that I'm not the most avid gamer, the mouse I use on my gaming PC setup is a Logitech G604 Lightspeed which gets the better part of a year on a single Eneloop Pro AA battery, which I can swap out for a charged battery in seconds when it finally runs out of juice.

> The battery also lasts a week or two

That's not remotely long enough for it not to be a pain to manage. Being battery-powered is my primary objection to wireless mice and keyboards.

That said, I do have a use case where the presence of cords are a larger problem than the hassle of being battery-powered and use a wireless mouse and keyboard there. But for everything else, nothing beats a cord.

Only high poll rate wireless gaming mice have battery life that low. Most wireless mice I've used can last months on a single or dual AA batteries. The Kensington trackball I'm using right now will last nearly a year on a single pair of AA batteries, I have some rechargeable NiCads in it currently that have been going for a few months and still have a good charge left. My wife gets about a year of usage on her Microsoft Bluetooth mouse.

My Logitech MX Anywhere 2 mouse would last me a few months on a single charge before swapping to this trackball. A recharge took like an hour or so, normally I'd get the low battery notification like in the morning, plug it in when I went to go to lunch, and it would be fully charged by the time I got back and be good for a few months. Or I'd get it near the end of the day, plug it in overnight, and it would be good for a few months. Really not a hassle in the slightest.

The mouse I use can charge wirelessly from a special mouse-pad. I’ve never had to think about batteries as a result. Pricey though. Combined the mouse / charging pad were close to $300 CAD

Using a mousepad at all is a nonstarter for me, and I avoid wireless charging generally because of the power waste that comes with it (I know, I'm weird).

Cords on my mouse and keyboard (aside from the one use case I mentioned) give me exactly no trouble anyway, so wireless stuff solves no problem I generally have.

That’s fair. For a keyboard I agree: mine has Bluetooth I’ve never used before. For a mouse though the lack of a cable is nice for playing FPSes and my work setup does double duty as my gaming setup.

I used to really enjoy my Razer wireless mouse with charging dock and ability to revert to cable.

That was until I stepped away from my computer (on my desk at home) to have dinner and came back an hour later to it being dead (mouse buttons worked, just didn’t pick up movement).

I contacted support and they couldn’t offer any kind of support, I asked if they could do a firmware reset and they said not possible.

This was about 9 years ago now and last piece of Razer hardware I ever bought.

I don't know what they're talking about, my mouse takes a couple AA batteries and I can count on one hand the times I remember changing them out.

I'm using an ultralight mouse with a small internal battery, not AA's. For one with a AAA I got a few months out of it.

In practice, I find that it's really a non issue. With a traditional wired mouse, you keep it plugged in all the time. In this case, you only keep it plugged in an hour or two every week or two.

It can still be used while charging. So when charging it's not any different than a wired mouse.

Been using a wireless mouse, Logitech m325, for years, including gaming and it's connected through a USB transfer switch and still works great! I agree on keyboards, I use wired.

> The battery also lasts a week or two, with some clever software tuning so it runs at a lower polling rate when not playing games. It charges in an hour or two.

That is surprising. I could have sworn we were way above that threshold now. I remember using some wireless Logitech mice that I never powered off manually and they lasted over 6-7 months of all day usage on one or two AA-batteries.

Mine might be a bit less because I crank it to 1000 poll/s and play a lot of games.

If you don't do any gaming and are fine with 125/s, you'll get a lot longer life.

My last mouse that used one AAA lasts ~3 months on a battery.

Just today my Thinkpad Trackpoint Keyboard II arrived and you might be interested to know, it uses 2.4Ghz OR bluetooth. The feel is great, and for me it's awesome because I don't have to accommodate a second keyboard layout. I'm either using a Thinkpad laptop or this Thinkpad keyboard, both with Trackpoint and the same layout / feel.