Logitech Zone Touch T400 Wireless Mouse for Windows 8 Review

Logitech Zone Touch Mouse T400

Now that the Microsoft Windows 8 Operating System (OS) has been released, many are finding that navigation with a mouse is somewhat lacking. Microsoft put much emphasis on touch and if your PC doesn’t have a touchscreen display then you are missing out on some of the programs ease of use. Microsoft, Logitech and many other mouse companies have released new mice that are designed to work best with Windows 8.

Logitech recently announced three new wireless touch devices for Windows 8 users. The Logitech Zone Touch Mouse T400 is the companies entry level wireless mouse for Windows 8. It looks and acts like a regular mouse with a touch zone for scrolling. From there you go up to the Touch Mouse T620 that has a full touch surface. This is a pretty radical change as it has no real left or right buttons and might be too much of a change for some. At the top end of the line you have the Touchpad T650 that is a large touchpad that can do 13 gestures and is considered the future of input interfaces. Today, we are going to be taking a closer look at the Logitech Zone Touch Mouse T400. This is the entry level Windows 8 touch mouse and where we will be getting our feet wet. When this mouse was first announced in October 2012 it had an MSRP $50, but can already be found for less than that online ($44.85 shipped). This also makes it affordable and that is a big plus in this day and age.

The Logitech Zone Touch Mouse t400 comes in a familiar looking box and the basic features are pretty much run of the mill. The mouse has three buttons, uses two AA batteries (included) and operates with 2.4GHz wireless technology and has a USB dongle that needs to be plugged into the PC. So far it sounds like any other wireless mouse, but the kicker on this one is that the physical wheel used for scrolling is gone. Logitech has replaced the wheel with a touch strip that you can use to move up or down, as well as scroll left or right. The touch strip has just one physical button, but Logitech divided the touch strip into two zones that can be programmed to do a couple different pre-programmed functions. Out of the box the top of the touch strip opens the Windows 8 start menu and the bottom acts like the traditional third button. Quite the change for one that has been using the old scroll wheel for more than a decade!

The Logitech retail box for the Zone Touch Mouse T400 covers the basic features, but doesn’t come close to providing in-depth information as to what this mouse exactly does. It looks like Legit Reviews still does have a future in reviewing PC hardware!

Inside the retail packaging you’ll find the Logitech T400 mouse, USB wireless dongle and the multilingual setup guide. The retail box mentions that the Logitech Zone Touch Mouse T400 has an impressive 18 month battery life and that batteries are included, so they must already be installed.

The Logitech Zone Touch Mouse T400 is a fairly small mouse that weighs 68 g (2.40 ounce) and measures in at 61 x 105 x 30 mm (WxLxH). The left/right/middle buttons are right where you’d expect and there is a soft rubber strip placed on the sides for better comfort and handling.

The right side of the Logitech t400 is the same as the left as this mouse can be setup and used by left and right handed users with the Logitech SetPoint software.

The best feature of this mouse is the surface-touch area that helps make Windows 8 touch navigation experience much better. On this ‘glass’ touch-zone area you can use one finger to do the following four gestures:

• Swipe up/down (vertical scrolling)
• Swipe left/right (horizontal scrolling)
• Swipe left/right (horizontal scrolling + back/forward)
• Double-tap front/back (zoom +/-)

The first two gestures work out of the box on Windows 7 or Windows 8 (RT supported as well), but the last two gestures require SetPoint 6.5 or later software installed to work. The touch surfaces on the Logitech T400, T620 and T650 are all powered by Synaptics technology.

Flipping the Logitech Zone Touch Mouse T400 over we can see that Logitech placed a removable sticker on the bottom that helps people turn the wireless mouse on and show the URL to download the software. In this shot you can see the 1000 DPI optical sensor that tracks the mouse movements. The DPI is not hardware or software adjustable. Also shown are the four ‘pads’ on the bottom of the mouse that help it glide across your mouse pad or desk surface.

The Logitech Zone Touch Mouse T400 comes with two Duracell AA Alkaline Batteries pre-installed. It is nice to see Logitech using a name brand and not a generic one! Logitech says the batteries could last up to 18 months in low-usage scenarios. We’ll be taking their word on that one! In-between the batteries is the holder for the USB 2.0 receiver/dongle. This wireless dongle uses the 2.4GHz (unifying) wireless protocols and has a range of up to 33 feet or 10 meters.

Now that we know about the main features and specifications, we can take a look at the mouse software!