Most computer mice spend their lives under our palms, so there’s little reason for them to look interesting when nobody’s using them. Lenovo’s 900 Transparent Wireless Mouse, however, disagrees. A clear outer shell surrounds a mirrored silver interior, making the solid part seem to float inside a smooth, pebble-shaped body. It’s a curious look for something that will probably spend most of its day beside a keyboard.
Transparent gadgets often invite you to admire their circuitry, as if the chips and wires were the whole attraction. Although also transparent, that’s not what Lenovo is doing here, though. The see-through layer shows off a polished inner housing rather than a miniature electronics exhibit. Light catches the space between those surfaces, while split aluminum-alloy buttons and a metal scroll wheel give you the familiar controls you’d expect from a mouse.
Designer: Lenovo
Its left and right sides are symmetrical, which means the mouse doesn’t make an obvious choice for either hand. That’s helpful if a desk is shared, though a matching outline isn’t the same thing as guaranteed comfort. At about 4.4 oz, the Lenovo 900 also isn’t trying to disappear in your bag. The shape looks smooth, but your hand would have the final say.
The more useful trick happens when your desk isn’t limited to one computer. You can pair the mouse with three devices using a 2.4 GHz wireless connection and two Bluetooth channels, then switch between them. Finish a document on your laptop, pick up work on a tablet, and return to the first screen without finding another mouse. The transparent shell can stay right where it is.
The PixArt PAW3222 optical sensor lets you adjust sensitivity from 400 to 4,000 DPI, which might matter more than it sounds. You could slow the pointer for a careful selection in a design file, then speed it up when moving between large displays. Of course, those numbers won’t turn a mouse into a drawing tablet, but they do let it adapt to different tasks.
For something you might carry between desks, its battery is reassuring on paper. Lenovo estimates that the built-in 300 mAh battery can last about 90 days per charge, based on an eight-hour workday, and says a full recharge over USB-C takes about two hours. You’ll still need to pack a cable eventually, but at least the mouse isn’t asking for one every Friday afternoon.
At 399 yuan (about $59) in China, the Lenovo 900 isn’t priced like a disposable office mouse. Its transparent shell asks for attention, but the mirrored interior keeps it from looking like a collection of exposed parts. That might be the cleverest decision here: you can leave it on a tidy desk without having to arrange the rest of your workspace around it.