I can’t count the number of times that I could have used a pen-style pointing device for my computer. Unfortunately the market is pretty limited for choices, focusing primarily on drawing tablets. Swedish company Penclic might very well have the ideal answer, however, with a new device that looks and feels like a pen, but has the power of a mouse.
Walking the floor at CES 2012 (catch all of our coverage here), I stumbled upon the Penclic mouse. The device sits upright on your desk, at the ready to be used as your pointing peripheral. Yes, that’s right, it’s designed to replace your mouse entirely, instead of just being something that you use once in a while.
Grabbing the Penclic mouse, you’ll immediately notice that it is designed to perfectly place the buttons where you’ll want them. There are typical left and right click buttons, as well as forward and back navigation that will be handled by your thumb. On the base of the mouse itself is a scroll wheel.
The mouse has selectable DPI that ranges between 800 and 2400. At 2400 it’s insanely fast and a bit hard to control. At the lower DPI settings, however, it’s positively a joy to use. The device that I tested was wired, but Penclic sells a wireless, 2.4 GHz version for a mere $10 more.
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Unfortunately my hands-on pictures were a bit sketchy due to terrible lighting but here’s the official demo video for you. The up shot is that the demo video accurately describes the product, instead of fluffing it up.
Pricing for the Penclic mouse is reasonable – $80 for the corded version or $90 to go wireless. The company also has an ergonomic keyboard coming out soon, so keep an eye on what Penclic is doing. You can bet that we will be, and we’ll tell you about the best stuff as it happens.
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