Urban Factory Photo Mouse

This Urban Factory mouse is certainly very original as it has a built-in miniature digital photo frame. What's even more surprising is that the screen really isn't that bad! In fact, it's much better than we were expecting, as in spite of its small size (2 inches), photos are sharp and accurate with decent-quality colours. And it's not like we don't know a thing or two about screens here at DigitalVersus ...

Design & Handling

The screen is an LCD with a TN panel, but given the mouse's budget price tag we couldn't really have hoped for anything more! This does mean that the image can look dark if you look at the display from the cable end of the mouse, but we doubt you'll be doing that very often. In other words, it's a relatively minor problem.




If you look at the sweeties photo with the mouse upside down (from above), the photo clearly loses contrast. Then when you turn it back the right way round (from below), the image is clear and sharp.

From below	Face on	From above

The screen really isn't bad at all! We tested it out with a selection of photos and each time we were pleasantly surprised. OK, it's not perfect, and you might well notice an overall blue tinge, but it's still perfectly acceptable. We were, however, less impressed with the system for loading photos onto the mouse. It's not particularly complicated, but the instructions supplied are just not detailed enough. So to help out our dear readers, we've decided to do Urban Factory's job for them. Pay close attention!

1 - Press and hold the Menu button on top of the mouse until the menu is displayed.
2 - Select USB Connect (scroll through the options using the UP and DOWN buttons on the sides of the mouse).
3 - Select this option by pressing the Menu button.
4 - Then select YES by pressing the Menu button again.

Next move over onto your PC (note that the Photo Mouse is only compatible with Windows systems).

A window will open containing the software file: DPFMate.

5 - Launch DPFMate.


6 - That's the tricky bit over with; from now on it's plain sailing. You can choose photos from the list on the left of the screen. A thumbnail is then displayed so you can re-centre the image. Once you've lined it up, double click on the picture to transfer it into your final selection. Select all the photos you want to add, and then click on Download to send them to the mouse.

7 - Next go back to the mouse and press Reset to close the application and automatically launch a slideshow of your pictures.

The built-in photo frame may be fun, but as a mouse, the Photo Mouse is nothing to write home about. There's no thumb button (for back and forwards browser controls), it has a fairly modest LED sensor and it's far too light at just 65 g.

Accuracy

To be perfectly honest, the mouse is of no interest whatsoever apart from its built-in photo frame. The LED sensor can't keep up with speeds exceeding 1 metre per second, which is the barest of bare minimums even for office computing. For fast-action gaming, for example, you'll need a mouse that can cope with speeds of 3 metres per second.

Its lightweight design isn't particularly helpful either, and it'll be far too light for gamers. In fact, it'll be too light for pretty much everyone other than the most laid-back of users.

It does, however, have one saving grace. Even though it only communicates its position to the computer 125 times per second (125 Hz) (while others do so at 1000 times i.e. at 1000 Hz), it at least manages to do so with a sufficient regularity. Most other budget mice can't even manage that.