Logitech V550 Nano Laser Mouse review

If, like the majority of laptop users, you find prolonged use of a trackpad awkward and tiresome, you've no doubt investigated some of the alternatives.

The most obvious is to connect a standard USB desktop mouse to your portable, but some problems with this are apparent as soon as you try it. Standard mice are generally quite bulky to carry. Their wires get tangled up when packed, and can be annoying in use. Opting for a wireless mouse helps, but you've then got to worry about it running out of battery, and (unless your laptop has built-in Bluetooth and your mouse supports it) you'll have a wireless USB dongle to fiddle with too.

Logitech's V550 Nano Laser Mouse aims to overcome all of these problems, while using the eponymous laser technology to provide enhanced precision on virtually any flat surface, though not, sadly, knees. The mouse benefits from a pleasingly compact size: not so tiny as to be unusable by any-one larger than Nicole Richie, but small enough to be easily portable. And it has another trick up its sleeve. The V550 Nano is supplied with two Clip-and-Go docks. Designed to stick to your laptop lid, these are small pads to which the mouse can easily be secured by sliding the nodule on the pad into a wedge on the mouse's underside. This not only allows for easy carrying, but automatically switches the mouse off to preserve its battery life.

The supplied wireless receiver is so diminutive that just a few millimetres protrude from your laptop's USB port when connected, so it can be left plugged in at all the time, making it less likely to get lost. In action, the mouse is a joy to use, with the buttons having a nice positive response. The scroll wheel allows for super-fast document scrolling and also tilts to enable sideways navigation.

With heavy discounts available from the official price of £50, you'll be hard pressed to find a more agreeable laptop mouse for the money.