21 March 2002
by Noah Kravitz
Columnist

Awhile back I got an email from a representative of a company called Shinza.com. Shinza runs a lovely self-titled website on which you can purchase the latest and greatest accessories for your Powerbook straight from Japan. Bear in mind before reading any further that though I've yet to visit there, many people have told me that Japan is a land full of people obsessed with things tiny, futuristic and cool. My PowerBook is probably the single possession of mine that best epitomizes "tiny, futuristic and cool," so when the nice man from Shinza offered to send me some Japanese PowerBook accessories to review I, of course, jumped at the chance. He even mentioned something about a minature scrolling wheel mouse. I couldn't wait for my pacakage from Shinza to arrive, and when it did I wasn't disappointed. Here's what I found inside, including what is by far the coolest mouse I've ever seen:

Note: All items are available for order on shinza.com.

Titanium Mini Optical USB Mouse - $39.95
This is the coolest mouse ever. It's tiny but entirely usable, has a great optical tracking system, two buttons and a clickable scroll wheel and is finished in titanium plastic that matches my PowerBook. Plus, the optical light on the underside of the mouse (Blue LED light) and the scroll wheel both glow in a super cool shade of blue that makes the titanium finish look even better. I've fallen in love with this baby. It's a little small (fits under my fingers) to use for hours on end design work, but I don't do much of that these days so I've yet to have a problem. I carry this mouse everywhere I go and constantly get questions and compliments on it. Highly recommended if you want a travel-sized mouse with a scroll wheel. Also available in Aqua.

Optical 24-Color Mouse - $48.95
What's great about this mouse isn't that it's an three button optical mouse with a clickable scroll wheel and accurate optical tracking. Nor that it's a fine fit and shape even for my big hands. No, what's cool about this mouse is the little button on the bottom that changes the color of the LED housed inside of the semi-opaque graphite plastic body. The LED glows steadily while the mouse is plugged into your USB port and brightens up when the mouse is actually in use, causing it to eminate colored light like a tiny spaceship under your hand. You can set the light to match your mood -- the 24 colors include blues, reds and some surprisingly appealing ambers and yellows. If you're the kind of person who likes to personalize everything about your PowerBook -- or the kind who likes to work in the dark and thinks colored lights are neato -- then this mouse is for you. The only drawback I found was that the driver software was a little quirky with some OS 9 apps -- scroll wheel functionality didn't always work correctly. Shinza told me that the mouse is made to work natively with OS X and that improved OS 9 drivers are on the way (it functions perfectly in OS 9 when using the shareware tool USB OverDrive - Ed). Comes with a neat little plastic snap-on case to keep track of your mouse cord.

Compact 4-Port USB Hub - $24.95
I've been using Dr. Bott's 3-Port USB Hub and would be hard pressed to recommend it over this offering from Shinza, or vice-versa. The Dr. Bott hub is smaller, featuring a design that stacks the three USB ports on top of each other to save space. The Shinza hub has two stacks of two hubs each set side-by-side, forming a grid of four hubs, so it's twice as wide as the Dr. Bott. But it does have four hubs instead of three. They both work just fine. The Shinza is finished in that neat titanium-colored plastic to match your PowerBook G4. The only things it lacks are LED indicators so you can troubleshoot those pesky USB devices. Still, for twenty-five bucks it's hard to beat a portable four-port hub.

Mobile Accessory Pouch - $5.95
A nice, small neoprene pouch with a zipper for carrying around your PowerBook accessories, MP3 Player, digital camera or other gizmos that you want to keep safe and dry. The pouch is soft, the pouch has a zipper and the pouch is black - what more could you want from a pouch? Shinza lists its dimensions as 4.5 x 0.79 x 7.09 inches -- plenty big enough for that iPod and some earbud headphones. I've been using my to carry my newfound favorite mouse (see above) and iMic USB audio adapter -- the pouch keeps them safe amidst the clutter of my shoulder bag. This item turned out to be handier than I'd anticipated; the geek with too many toys can never have enough carrying cases, as it turns out.