Targus Wireless Presenter with Laser Pointer

No, it's not broken, and the battery is not dead. You just have to find and flip the hidden on/off switch on the side.

It's working great with Ubuntu Linux, and apparently just operates as a mini USB RF keyboard. Just plug it in and voila! Unfortunately, the USB connector is too wide, and you might end up overlapping and losing one of your existing neighbor ports. Or you could just use an extension USB cable or a hub.

Open Office's Impress (and anything else that uses a keyboard; you can probably find interesting other uses like volume control/mute) simply works as expected, responding to 'page-up', 'page-down', and 'alt-esc' (window cycling). There's also the mysterious 'page-blank' button that works well, but I'm not even sure the key sequence to achieve that from my standard keyboard. Cool!

The laser is a nice fine beam, red.

The remote is small enough that your audience wouldn't even know you're holding it.

It comes with a silly huge bag that I'll probably throw away.

Overall I'm very pleased. In summary: small, easy to use, intuitive layout, works OOTB with Linux, can have multiple applications, nice laser, and CHEAP!

If you've listened to Guy Kawasaki (the one and only build feature you must use is "one-bullet-at-a-time") or David Rose (you have to use a remote) you'll understand the importance of having a remote. Can't go wrong with this one.

Now to see how it does with the new Impress add-on for multi screen/page presenter mode, Sun Presenter Console.

The Targus presenter which I purchased works just fine. I would suggest however, that the manufacturer STRESS in their instructions, that if you have a wireless mouse, you must disconnect that before using the product.

This was exactly what I wanted, it shows up to your computer as simply a USB keyboard so it works on all operating systems, including Linux, right out of the box. The buttons on the device are actually just page up, page down, b, and alt-tab keys, so it works fine in any program where those keys are useful (including OpenOffice Impress and Okular). It's very light weight and even came with a little travel pouch thingy.

The "clicker" works comfortably in the hand and has been problem-free so far. The laser pointer is just an extra treat on this very serviceable product. For use in the library, it allows me to move around as I teach a lesson.

It is great to have only ONE thing to hold while doing a presentation. It is really responsive as a remote (to change your slides). Somehow it even works when you are standing in front of the USB or it is behind you. Miraculous. HOWEVER it only gets 1 star since it might as well not have a laser pointer. The red dot is SO SMALL you can barely see it and it is really weak that it only appears on really dark backgrounds under low lighting conditions. TOO BAD! Even though it is cheap and works, I have to buy a new one it is so bad. Save yourself the $<30 and get a nicer one. Targus customer service can be hard to deal with as well.