Cherry MW 2100

The Cherry MW 2100 is a compact wireless mouse with a maximum dots-per-inch (dpi) rating of 2,000dpi and a claimed 366 hours of use with a 2,200mAh battery, such as the one included. Setup is simple. You just press a button on the underside of the mouse to eject the top cover and insert the supplied battery, then insert the tiny 2.4GHz receiver into a spare USB port on your computer and the two will connect. The MW 2100’s small size means it would make a good travel mouse, but you have to pop the top off to find the hole to stash the wireless receiver.

Also on the underside of the mouse is a button that changes the dpi rating of the mouse to 1,000, 1,500 or 2,000dpi. You may prefer different settings depending on the application you’re currently using; for general Windows Desktop use you may prefer a lower dpi rating, but a higher one may be handy in games, where you need to be able to move the mouse quickly to a small, specific area of the screen. Being able to change this setting with a switch is useful, but its position on the bottom of the mouse means you’ll not want to flick settings all the time.

The MW 2100 looks too small to be used for regular desktop work, but after several days of use we didn’t have a problem with it, and our hand never felt tired or strained. The only problem we saw was some stuttering and judder when we made wide, quick movements over the desktop. The mouse pointer will remain static, for example, and then suddenly jump to where it’s supposed to be. We saw the same problem on the Cherry DW 3000 set, and it seems to be caused by poor wireless reception when the tiny receiver is plugged in to a PC on the floor. That said, you won’t have such problems if used with a laptop.

The mouse has few buttons; just a left, right and central button on the scroll wheel, but that’s as many as most people will need for basic desktop work. At £10, the MW 2100 is a fairly good buy if you need a simple, compact mouse for your home or office.