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Comment by poink | Hacker News Reader

> Secondly, you get a wireless mouse and extended keyboard. Both have to be plugged in to charge. In the case of the mouse, the cable plugs in at the bottom, rendering it useless during charging. Truly a bad design.

The Magic Mouse 2 is one of the worst mice I've ever used, but the charging thing is a non-issue. The battery lasts like a month on one charge. Mine has never gone below 50%.

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The Magic Mouse 2 is one of the worst mice I've ever used, but the charging thing is a non-issue. The battery lasts like a month on one charge. Mine has never gone below 50%.

This would be terrible for me, my battery always dies in the middle of the day, because I do not want to keep track of charging. Luckily, the Magic Trackpad 2 does not have this shortcoming and can be used with a lightning cable attached.

(I absolutely love the Magic Trackpad 2. Not just because it is large, but some applications use haptic feedback. E.g. OmniGraffle uses a subtle vibration so that you feel when two objects are aligned.)

You get nine hours of battery life from two minutes of charging for Magic Mouse 2. It's really not an issue.

Why does the magic mouse have fast charging but iPhones don't?

iPhones do have fast charging, see Power and Battery on https://www.apple.com/iphone-8/specs/

Also a magic mouse has much lower power drain, so the same amount of charge lasts much longer on the mouse.

iPhones do have fast charging, but the mouse takes waaaay less power so a small amount of charging time gives a large amount of usage.

It charges fast because it has a very small battery, not because it has Fast Charging™

Why does your coffee mug fill fast from the faucet but your swimming pool doesn't?

>This would be terrible for me, my battery always dies in the middle of the day, because I do not want to keep track of charging.

Don't keep track of charging, just plug it in once every 15-20 days over the night. If that's difficult, you're making things hard for no reason.

You don't have to keep track of it. The OS will tell you when you have 10% left which is about 2 days of use and it quick charges in about 20 minutes to give you a month's worth of use. It's a non-issue.

FWIW, the reason it's on the bottom (according to one of the engineers) is because they didn't want people to leave it plugged in all the time while using it as that severely degrades the lifespan of the internal battery. Forcing people to plug it in while not in use apparently extended the lifespan by something crazy like 20x.

>The Magic Mouse 2 is one of the worst mice I've ever used, but the charging thing is a non-issue. The battery lasts like a month on one charge. Mine has never gone below 50%.

Worst mice? It's one of the better mouse I've used, if not the best, the touch interaction is fantastic and the accuracy spot on.

I'd only change the stupid location of the charger port.

Not OP but it gives me hand cramps and I can never get the gestures to work right.

The charging is a total non-issue, however.

My theory on the charging awkwardness was that Apple really wants people to use trackpads anyway.

But, since macOS is quite good about warning you when the battery is low with plenty of time to spare, I don't see the Sturm und Drang, except as usual "Gotta complain about Apple's unorthodox decisions" wankery.

How does it compare to the original?

It's the same, except it has a built in battery and is rechargeable with a lightning cable (which the port is located on the bottom of the device, so you can't use it whilst charging).

I don't understand battery charge cycles and batter degradation much or really at all, bit could the port on the bottomaybe a subtle way to encourage people to not charge so frequently and weaken the battery prematurely?

Pretty sure that’s it. Otherwise people would leave it permanently plugged in.

When mine dies it’s a good excuse to find a cup of coffee. By the time I get back there’s more than enough charge for the rest of the day.

There's no need to do that with properly designed circuitry and since discharging fully is damaging, encouraging this behavior is probably harmful to battery longevity. Battery University has so much information on this, but this part is a good summary chart (see the lithium-ion column) [1]

[1] http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_charge_whe...

With lithium-ion it's actually better for prolonging battery life to charge frequently rather than let it run down.

I used both as daily drivers.

With the prior version, I started out just changing out the normal AA batteries when they died every several months. That felt wasteful, though, so I got rechargeable AA batteries, but swapping them out every month or so was tedious.

Now I just plug it in every few weeks when I leave the office for the weekend. I definitely prefer it.

Handy to know. I didn't know if there was a subtle difference between the Magic Mouse 1 and 2 other than the charging port (which honestly is in a ridiculous position). I started using the original in 2010 and haven't looked back.

I honestly think it was a conscious decision. The problem with most wireless mice I see in our office is they end up being left constantly plugged in and are essentially wired mice. By placing the charge port on the bottom they are actively prohibiting you from using it as wired mouse.

But that doesn't explain the keyboard and trackpad though, which can be used while plugged in and charging.

How is that an issue? If anything, that just shows how pointless it was to run it over Bluetooth in the first place.

Other have mentioned other aspects, so I'll just pitch in with my own specific experience: Have a Magic Mouse 1 at home. Used Magic Mouse 2 [MM2] as a daily driver for a freelance gig for a couple of months and I was very happy with it. MM2 feels more balanced/lighter and the feet are angled better and possibly made of a different material that slides with less friction. Overall I prefer the 2 and I never had any issues with the charge port placement. Low on battery? Plug in, grab a coffee or lunch, come back: Done.

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