I stopped by a few electronics stores today to look for some gadgets. Usually the best stuff is to be found in the discount bins, but I was looking for a new mouse today as well. I have been using a Logitech Click! mouse, a dependable old variety that I got at Yodobashi a few years back for just ¥2000. It’s corded, but that’s the better alternative here in Japan; the good part is that it’s a nice, dependable mouse with four buttons (one is the scroll wheel, the fourth just below the wheel). But they’re getting aged, and my Logitech V270 Bluetooth mouse seems to have crapped out on me, so I went looking for a replacement. I wanted a mouse that (1) had 4 or more buttons, (2) was regular-sized, not that tiny “portable mouse” crapola, (3) tracked well on all kinds of surfaces, and (4) cost close to ¥2000.

What I found was the Sanwa Supply MA-G9DS. It has, surprisingly, seven buttons: two in the normal places, a scroll wheel button (also normal), and two buttons on the left side above your thumb–but the scroll wheel can also be pushed left and right for two more button actions. It’s marked as only working on Windows, but my Mac detects all seven buttons just fine. It tracks better than the Logitech (no skips so far, much better than any mouse I’ve used to date), and is simple. One strange point: the cable has a weird, almost metallic mesh sort of feel to it.

But I can live with that just fine. It even has a built-in USB plug cap–not that I’ve ever had problems with loose stuff in my bag getting into the USB connector. It costs ¥2680, but that’s close enough for what you seem to get.

Next, I was surprised to find that flash memory is coming down in price. Just a few years ago, 32 MB was the size memory stick you got for ¥2000; now it’s 128 MB. But they had a surprise in the store: an import, a Kingston USB flash stick… 1 GB, for ¥1980.

It was big enough (in capacity) and cheap enough that I decided to pick one up, just as a spare (I already have two 256 MB flash drives). I have seen cheap USB flash sticks at Costco, but none this cheap for this price, and certainly none outside of Costco. The same product does cost $13 in the US, about $3.50 less than it does here, but such low-priced stuff is not easily findable in Japan; it was certainly a bargain.

Finally, an old item at a new price: one of those F. A. Porsche-designed LaCie USB 2.0 external hard drives (250 GB).

I didn’t buy it for myself, actually (I already have two of the things), but for a friend looking for such a drive. My two have done fine for me over the past three or so years, and when I saw it on sale for ¥9800 ($83–$15 cheaper than Amazon in the US!) I recommended it to him, and he said to buy it. The image above is not the one I bought today, it’s one of my old ones–but it’s nearly identical. Small vents have been added to the back left side, and the power on-off was changed from a switch to a button, but it’s mostly the same.

You may not think that any of these are particularly new, fancy, or cheap–but remember, I’m looking for bargains here, not cutting edge, and this is Japan, where electronics usually cost 40-60% more than they do in the U.S. It was certainly good enough.