Just had a chance to disassemble it and remove the
plastic lens that creates the line-of-light, and other
optical obstructions and it produces a nice little spot
focussable with a hand magnifying glass to a very
fine spot that is uncomfortable to look at, so
presumably with a dual-lens arrangement will
give a decent parallel and non-divergent beam.

So, even if you've got no immediate use for it, a small
laser that is already mounted in a plastic housing
can't be bad for a couple of quid for future
experiments.

Anybody seen inside those devices that project
laser writing - are they just a couple of rotating mirrors
with suitable synchronising pulses being generated?

Plod's Conscience wrote:
Powered as it is by AAA cells, it seems to have
a greater power, and a greater reserve of power, than
those laserpointers powered by watch batteries.

Allowing for the lens that is used to produce the
straight line beam, the spot from the end was
easily picked out on a gravestone 1/4 mile away,
thus suggesting that a tight beam is being produced.