Do you need a mouse in college? : 6 popular questions

In this post, we’re going to respond to the popular questions that students ask about mouse use in college.

6 interesting questions we’re going to respond to in this post and you find them directly below.

Do you need a mouse in college?

The response is yes and not, for some majors like English or liberal majors you don’t need to use a mouse with a laptop the touchpad is enough to do all the tasks. In other words, adding an external mouse consumes a little bit of a laptop ram and some additional electric power from your laptop.

But this consumption is ignored and students should not take it into account, let me explain why.

A computer mouse consumes 500 watts per/ hour, in other words, it consumes 3% of a battery capacity. In other words, if your laptop lasts 5 hours without a mouse. As result, it will last 4 hours and 50 minutes.

So 10 minutes is the time that an external mouse will cut from a battery as an approximation.

So it is not a big deal and students should not worry about that.

But if you are a computer science student or engineering student, having a mouse separately in college lectures can be useful for productivity. For computers science students who code using only a touchpad will be slowing their activities.

You can imagine having 100 lines of codes and you have to go back and forth between them. which will be fast a scroller wheel mouse or your finger?

We made a comparison between an external mouse and a touchpad and we found that a mouse is fast 4 times than a touchpad.

For engineering students like mechanical ones using sophisticated programs, such as CAD or any other modeling program is useless with a touchpad. You can’t design or do 3d modeling with a touchpad laptop is useless. In this case, using a mouse in college lectures is an obligation.

do I need a gaming mouse if I am a college student

you should, especially if you are a stem or artistic major Because gaming mouses have many advantages that will help in your courses. To clarify using a gaming laptop will allow you to:

• have extra buttons helping to map easily programs
• have extra precision doing 3d modeling for mechanical engineers or architects
• it will be useful for computer sience students to code and edit fastly their codes
• it is so useful for students who are doing 3d modeling such as blender
• play video games in your spare time when you get done form assignments
• They are more comfortable than regular mouses
• they will be useful for electrical engineering helping them to manage complex schematics easily
• if you do animation have a gaming mouse is more precise for drawing models

But for students who have liberal majors using a gaming mouse will be a loss of money. To clarify, it won’t add value for students who browse, write, or read documents.

for college students who are interested in gaming mouses, you have to be aware of that.

Gaming mouses have many ranges, but the tip that we will offer for broke college students is to buy wired gaming mouses. Because cheaper gaming mouses have many issues that you could face as a student.

To clarify, if you buy a cheap wireless mouse you will face latency problems. In other words, latency is having a slow response between your mouse and computer.

The second thing is you should avoid gaming AA battery mouses they drain fast and require expensive batteries which is costly.

In addition, sometimes these gaming mouses disconnect suddenly without any notification. As a result, this is will be so bad and annoying if you play games with your laptop or computer.

The last thing is, if you have a budget, go and look for high-quality wireless gaming mouses to avoid the problems that we listed above.

should you use a Mouse with a MacBook?

yes, you should use a mouse with a MacBook if you do graphical or engineering tasks as we will mention below:

• designing and modeling in 3d software like engineering students do
• if you are doing a graphical design like photoshop
• if you program or code as a beginner using the mouse will be helpful
• for students who studying architecture drawing in Autocad or any software
• for people who make music productions, you will require precise mouse. So to managing a lot of close icons that music software have

In addition:

• if you do a lot of research in a web where time is important ( mouses are faster 4 times than MacBook trackpad )
• to playing music or video games will need a mouse with a MacBook
• touchpad or trackpads are tiring if you work in an office for long hours
• for students or people doing animation with MacBook having a mouse is an obligation
• connecting external monitors to a MacBook, is highly recommendable and comfortable to use a mouse
• Some users don’t use MacBook trackpad because when they type their hands touch the trackpad and annoy them.

But for people who are just browsing or don’t use their MacBook for longer times or time-controlled tasks, using trackpads is enough for them.

But for serious tasks using a mouse is very productive with MacBook than a trackpad.

is the free wolf wireless gaming mouse good for college students?

wireless gaming mouses are good for college students to use because of this 3 important reasons:

• portability
• life battery
• flexibility
• noise
• price

==> portability: wolf gaming mouse is lightweight it weighs on average 150 to 200 grams, this weight helps students to move them fast and at the same time not lose the steps as it happens with a super light mouse. So having some extra weight is good.

==> Life battery: they are chargeable and last longer, they take 6 hours to charge completely but finally last for a week. So as a college student you will get rid of noisy wires.

==> flexibility: you can control or browse for a 10 m distance if you like to keep your eyes safe from a computer screen. In addition, the wolf gaming mouse came with an additional button helping to manage complex tasks like 3d modeling or design.

==> noise: for college students who hate noisy clicking sounds, the wolf gaming mouse has silent buttons. So it doesn’t t make any sound it is like a MacBook air it is completely silent.

==>Price: they are cheaper they don’t exceed $30.

The only drawback that you might face is latency, but many college students didn’t affirm that. Anyway, all wireless gaming mouses can have this issue.

Is the Macbook Air trackpad good enough not to need a mouse?

The MacBook Air trackpad is good enough but it is still limited compared to mouses, especially for applications like:

• programming
• 2d and 3d desing
• video editing
• playing video games or music

==> programming: using a MacBook air trackpad programming will be not comfortable and slower than a mouse. For instance, you can imagine having 100 lines of code. So you should go back and forth between them using a trackpad.

==> 2d or 3d animation: for people who are doing a graphic design like photoshop or adobe illustrator you can’t use a MacBook trackpad alone, is useless. In addition the same thing for engineers and artists who do 3d design and modeling.

==> video editing: using only a MacBook air trackpad in video editing will drive you nut, especially if you have a long video to edit.

==> playing video games or music: Sometimes it is impossible to play some video games or music without a gaming mouse, you can’t do that with only a MacBook air trackpad.

But if you only need to browse on the internet and do regular stuff in this case a MacBook air trackpad will be enough.

Does my wireless mouse consume power from my laptop?.

yes, it consumes some energy power through its receiver plugged into your laptop. Because it is responsible to ensure the communication between your laptop and a mouse.

But the question is how much is it consuming? Does it matter?

or can that decrease your laptop battery life? So this is what we’re going to respond to.

To give a deep explanation your wireless mouse consumes power from your laptops differently in 2 phases:

• when you are working with a mouse
• when a mouse is sleeping ( at the time you are out of work)

In the table below you will find how much power consumes in these 2 cases:

So as we can see 75mW is nothing to notice in the maximum uses. While when you let it take only 1mW which is nothing.

To make you close we calculated how a mouse can take energy from your laptop battery. So there is the result in the table below.

Typically the laptop battery has between 2000 mAh to 6000 mAh according to CNET So we will take the average battery laptop in the market.

This calculation was made for a battery laptop that has 3000mAh.So the average battery laptops that you can find in the market.

So if you are skeptical about USB wireless if they drive energy from your laptops the numbers don’t show that. To clarify just 7 minutes is the maximum power that a USB wireless will drain from your laptop.