It's been a long time since I made a good rant - here goes, Logitech.
Usually I rant about companies I don't like and are stepping on the little guy or are pulling some other, usually legal/patent/copywrite asshattery. This rants going to be different, in this case I'm going to rant about a company I really do like and I think is one of the best in the industry.
Logitech.
Yes, I sort of ranted about this a year ago - as a matter of fact nearly exactly a year ago, I'm going to have to check my tags for this - but this time it's a little better targeted. Update: It was a year to the day. If I recall it was the Dell Bluetooth/Mouse combo I got on that "update". Good layout, not that great otherwise, the keyboard was a bit flaky.
Logitech makes great hardware, very few things from them have I ever classified as junk. Even their mice that I've picked up for $3.00 or so were incredibly good bargains and well worth that much or more.
Here's a quick once over of some of their hardware I use regularly or recommend/give to others.
Precision Gamepad. I bought one of these just last week for my kids netbook, I've had one on Grannies computer for a couple of years for my cousins and myself when we're over there, my daughter loves to watch me play Mario. The thing retails for an MSRP no less of about $10.00. I challenge you to find one that is better and that affordable for SNES emulation.
Webcam Pro 9000 - the next best webcam I've ever used, not the cheapest thing going, but reasonable for the quality, and it works great on Linux. The microphone is as good as the video.
The V470 Bluetooth Mouse awesome Bluetooth mouse, works incredibly well, very precise, great on battery life, feels solid, takes abuse well.
That last one is what I'm sort of here to bitch about. Logitech has a proven track record of being and awesome mouse maker, an almost defacto standard. Their other peripherals are great to. Why are they all but ignoring Bluetooth?
As far as I'm concerned there are two modern interfaces for HID devices, USB and Bluetooth. They have USB covered, both corded and cordless USB dongles they have it down. The problem with both is they keep taking USB ports for every item you have. On my laptop I have one of those 470's paired, the Mini Apple keyboard left over from what I bought of the Mac Book Pro I had to give back, and a PS3 game control.
That V470 is a really nice mouse, but it's labeled as "travel" and "notebook". Outside of some that come with very expensive keyboards they don't offer any other models alone. Why don't they have desktop Bluetooth mice? Sure I the 470 as desktop mouse but they are kind of small, fine by me, but not for everyone. The only other non-bundled option besides the Blue V470 is for $10 extra you can get the white V470 targeted at Mac users.
They only offer a few keyboard, most of them very specialized, all of them very expensive at $150+, buying one of these it the only "official" way to get a desktop Bluetooth mouse. Sure there is a cheaper one for the PS3, but it's not marketed to PC's and has some PS3 specific button layouts that can annoy people using it as a PC keyboard.
They offer an awesome wireless game pad, but again, it's a USB dongle. Other than a couple of crappy gamepads for mobile phones NOBODY outside of game console makers offers a Bluetooth game pad, and those are meant for their consoles ONLY. It takes a we bit of hacking wizardry to get around this, but it wasn't the manufacturers who made it happen.
If I were to duplicate my laptops setup with USB dongles 3 of the 4 USB ports would be taken, and even though they have the really cool leave in low profile construction I might have to take the rear ones out when docking - unsure on this one. I'm assuming it would waste battery power to leave those in as well, with Bluetooth I'm using 1 radio instead of 3 for these devices. I'll admit that the dedicated dongle setup is easier to configure and "just works" but it's not always the best case scenario. Especially if I lose one, if you lose the dongle (which can easily happen on a toted around laptop) the peripheral becomes useless. If I lose my Bluetooth one, I just buy that.
I realize Logitech isn't the only game in town. This one looks nice and appears to be rebranded by about a dozen others. Microsoft has quite a few offerings that appear to be quite good. Most of them don't have the side scroll the Logitech has, outside of the Gimp I don't use that to often anyways.
I'm picking on Logitech primarily because I do considering them good quality and reliable and the undisputed leader in their field. If they change their offerings, everyone else is bound to follow, they wont have a choice but to follow. It's not Chicken/Egg, the demand exist, it's just a matter of meeting it.
Logitech.
Yes, I sort of ranted about this a year ago - as a matter of fact nearly exactly a year ago, I'm going to have to check my tags for this - but this time it's a little better targeted. Update: It was a year to the day. If I recall it was the Dell Bluetooth/Mouse combo I got on that "update". Good layout, not that great otherwise, the keyboard was a bit flaky.
Logitech makes great hardware, very few things from them have I ever classified as junk. Even their mice that I've picked up for $3.00 or so were incredibly good bargains and well worth that much or more.
Here's a quick once over of some of their hardware I use regularly or recommend/give to others.
Precision Gamepad. I bought one of these just last week for my kids netbook, I've had one on Grannies computer for a couple of years for my cousins and myself when we're over there, my daughter loves to watch me play Mario. The thing retails for an MSRP no less of about $10.00. I challenge you to find one that is better and that affordable for SNES emulation.
Webcam Pro 9000 - the next best webcam I've ever used, not the cheapest thing going, but reasonable for the quality, and it works great on Linux. The microphone is as good as the video.
The V470 Bluetooth Mouse awesome Bluetooth mouse, works incredibly well, very precise, great on battery life, feels solid, takes abuse well.
That last one is what I'm sort of here to bitch about. Logitech has a proven track record of being and awesome mouse maker, an almost defacto standard. Their other peripherals are great to. Why are they all but ignoring Bluetooth?
As far as I'm concerned there are two modern interfaces for HID devices, USB and Bluetooth. They have USB covered, both corded and cordless USB dongles they have it down. The problem with both is they keep taking USB ports for every item you have. On my laptop I have one of those 470's paired, the Mini Apple keyboard left over from what I bought of the Mac Book Pro I had to give back, and a PS3 game control.
That V470 is a really nice mouse, but it's labeled as "travel" and "notebook". Outside of some that come with very expensive keyboards they don't offer any other models alone. Why don't they have desktop Bluetooth mice? Sure I the 470 as desktop mouse but they are kind of small, fine by me, but not for everyone. The only other non-bundled option besides the Blue V470 is for $10 extra you can get the white V470 targeted at Mac users.
They only offer a few keyboard, most of them very specialized, all of them very expensive at $150+, buying one of these it the only "official" way to get a desktop Bluetooth mouse. Sure there is a cheaper one for the PS3, but it's not marketed to PC's and has some PS3 specific button layouts that can annoy people using it as a PC keyboard.
They offer an awesome wireless game pad, but again, it's a USB dongle. Other than a couple of crappy gamepads for mobile phones NOBODY outside of game console makers offers a Bluetooth game pad, and those are meant for their consoles ONLY. It takes a we bit of hacking wizardry to get around this, but it wasn't the manufacturers who made it happen.
If I were to duplicate my laptops setup with USB dongles 3 of the 4 USB ports would be taken, and even though they have the really cool leave in low profile construction I might have to take the rear ones out when docking - unsure on this one. I'm assuming it would waste battery power to leave those in as well, with Bluetooth I'm using 1 radio instead of 3 for these devices. I'll admit that the dedicated dongle setup is easier to configure and "just works" but it's not always the best case scenario. Especially if I lose one, if you lose the dongle (which can easily happen on a toted around laptop) the peripheral becomes useless. If I lose my Bluetooth one, I just buy that.
I realize Logitech isn't the only game in town. This one looks nice and appears to be rebranded by about a dozen others. Microsoft has quite a few offerings that appear to be quite good. Most of them don't have the side scroll the Logitech has, outside of the Gimp I don't use that to often anyways.
I'm picking on Logitech primarily because I do considering them good quality and reliable and the undisputed leader in their field. If they change their offerings, everyone else is bound to follow, they wont have a choice but to follow. It's not Chicken/Egg, the demand exist, it's just a matter of meeting it.