Tag Archives: sliding

This Collapsible Mouse Is So Flat It Shares a Sleeve With Your Laptop

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Traveling with a mouse has always carried a specific low-level inconvenience. Full-size mice claim too much space in a slim bag, compact mice often sacrifice comfort for portability, and both still need their own compartment to avoid getting lost or damaged. The usual answer is a palm-sized wireless mouse that needs to be packed with some thought and unpacked with intention at every new stop along the way.

The Portronics Toad Fold approaches that directly. Rather than making a mouse smaller, it slides down in half with a magnetic snap mechanism, collapsing to a profile flat enough to slip into the same laptop sleeve as the laptop itself. At just 38g, it barely registers in a bag, and the snap closure means it doesn’t need a separate case or a dedicated compartment to stay protected during the commute.

Designer: Portronics

Connectivity covers both Bluetooth and 2.4 GHz wireless, and multi-device pairing allows the Toad Fold to work across several devices without swapping dongles or going through re-pairing every time. Moving from a laptop to an Android tablet becomes a matter of switching, not reconfiguring. The included USB receiver handles the 2.4 GHz side for scenarios where a stable, lag-free connection matters more than portless convenience.

Opening the mouse reveals an ergonomic curved shape designed for extended use, with DPI adjustable up to 3,200 for precision across different tasks. The curve sits more naturally against the hand than most ultra-compact mice allow, since that category usually forces a nearly flat profile that gets tiring through long sessions. A matte black finish keeps the surface neutral and fingerprint-resistant without demanding any particular attention.

The built-in battery charges via USB-C, removing the need for replacement batteries, and an auto sleep mode stretches battery life during idle periods. That combination handles a full workday without needing to charge mid-session, which is the relevant concern for anyone moving between locations rather than sitting at a fixed desk with easy access to a charging cable at all times.

The Toad Fold is designed for a kind of worker who treats the mouse as the last thing to pack rather than the first. Students sharing library tables, remote workers bouncing between coffee shops, and professionals moving between offices all share the same friction with conventional mice, which tend to be an afterthought in bag organization despite being essential to how work actually gets done on a laptop every day.

Compatibility covers Windows, macOS, and Android, which handles most combinations of laptop and tablet a person might carry across locations. Multi-device pairing means a single mouse can stay connected to a laptop and tablet at the same time, reducing the friction of shifting between screens during a day that moves between different setups without a fixed home base. It’s a mouse built around the idea that the best portable peripheral vanishes into an existing bag without adding to the mental overhead of packing.

The post This Collapsible Mouse Is So Flat It Shares a Sleeve With Your Laptop first appeared on Yanko Design.

MagSafe iPhone sliding game controller gives off PSP Go vibes

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The iPhone has always been a powerful device, but like many smartphones, that power is always tested when it comes to gaming. Of course, there are plenty of games that run smoothly on the iPhone, especially those either designed specifically for iOS or optimized for it under the Apple Arcade ecosystem. Recently, however, the chance for emulators and emulated games to run on iPhones has become more feasible, which puts game controllers under a microscope. Although these have been around for years now, the large majority of them felt inconvenient, clunky, and less ideal for gaming on the go. This upcoming design tries to address those concerns from a different angle, and it takes inspiration from sliders like the PSP Go or, closer to home, the Xperia Play.

Designer Name: Josh King

Phone game controllers these days mostly come in two flavors. One is a bulky, traditional controller with a clip to hold your phone, while the more popular design flanks the phone with split controls. The latter is more portable but still tedious to use, especially when it requires taking off your iPhone’s protective case every time you want to play. To fix this design problem, the M-Con looks to other portable gaming systems that are more suitable for phone-sized devices, and it turns out that Sony already answered the same problem years ago.

The short-lived Xperia Play smartphone, and the PSP Go handheld console before it, utilized a sliding mechanism to keep the buttons and joysticks out of the way when you’re not playing. This, however, was built into the devices themselves, which made the Xperia Play too bulky to be used as a regular phone. The M-Con, in contrast, is removable just like those other smartphone controllers today, but the difference is that it uses MagSafe technology to easily and securely attach to an iPhone’s back. You can opt to have it attached all the time or quickly separate the two pieces to shove them into your pockets separately.

The design, however, has one more trick up its sleeve. The controller part and the MagSafe plate can also part ways, as the latter can also be used as a stand for the iPhone. Since M-Con uses Bluetooth to connect to the iPhone, the controller can still be used as normal, allowing you to play with the phone standing on a table. In fact, you can even connect the iPhone to a larger screen to have a home console experience in the same manner.

M-Con is said to be coming soon, but availability details and pricing are still unknown. Since it was born from a DIY and 3D printed project, the quality of the resulting product is also an open question. And while this sliding controller does have a more compact and convenient design, it also squeezes the controls tightly together, which could lead to a cramped and uncomfortable gaming experience.

The post MagSafe iPhone sliding game controller gives off PSP Go vibes first appeared on Yanko Design.