I’m tired of the nonsense associated with my current mouse, and am now in the market for a futuristic optical mouse. I checked out this one, and it looks pretty hot. I’ll get it from another site, as I’ve seen much lower prices elsewhere.
Can anyone recommend a different model or brand? What features should I be concerned with?
Thanks for the input (pun intended)…
A mate of mine has one with two wheels and something like seven buttons; it sucks; you can’t move the cursor without accidentally clicking one of the very sensitive buttons (usually the one that he has defined as ‘minimize’, or ‘shut down Windows without saving any documents’ or some such). Avoid excess functions.
I have an older logitech optical mouse and it’s been great. It’s USB, very durable and generally does everything I want: two buttons, a scroll wheel and a good clean feel. I do use a mouse pad, mostly for my wrists and becuase I prefer the feel to moving the mouse over my desk or table.
With regards to wireless mice, I’ve never held one I’ve been happy with. The mouse has to have some form of battery in it, which makes it generally heavier and bigger than a wired mouse.
I love my Microsoft OptiMouse.
I have just gotten a Logitech MX 300. Very simple little mouse but the response is great and I don’t have the dang wheel getting clogged up with dust ever other day. buttons and such are nice feeling and the wheel works the way that it is supposed to. Even has a little button in the center that will let me Alt-Tab between programs. Good stuff. Costs about $20-25 at Best Buy.
I’ve actually got a Yahoo! optical mouse. Two-button, scroll wheel, and it has a red light that you can program to blink when you get incoming e-mails. It works perfectly and I’ve had it about two years now.
Price? $6.99 from TigerDirect.
I use a cheap Logitech optical mouse I got at Office Max for $20. Works great.
I tried both the Logitech optical mouse and the Microsoft optical mouse with five programmable buttons. The Microsoft mouse was far superior in feel and software functionality. Logitech has this goofy, semi-functional visual wheel-type of interface that manages the programmable functions. The Microsoft programmable software is wonderful–I use custom functions on about 7 applications and it makes work go quicker. Probably the best Microsoft product I have ever purchased or used.
New Gateway at work has an optical mouse - it’s weird because when I get to the edge of the pad and lift the mouse to reposition, it still tracks - I have to take really HIGH steps like I’m walking in snow, if you take my meaning.
My old Sun workstation optical mouse had sort of velvet strips on the bottom as wear surfaces, and the nap of the velvet would make it hard to move in a certain direction. It also did the walking in snow bit.
My Gateway Astro has a USB mouse and keyboard, and would keep crashing by not recognizing them (or the off button) - I had to keep rebooting by pulling the line cord (no other way).
And why the hell are mice so big? They fill the entire hand, so you have to move them by moving your arm, not by moving your fingers (a much easier motion to control). I am thinking of trying one of those special mice made for laptops, just to get the size down.
What the hell happened? Everything else is miniaturized, but mice and radios got huge.
I have a USB Logitech optical cordless mouse. It has just two buttons, positioned on the sides of the scroll wheel. I like it a lot. Wish it didn’t eat through batteries as quickly as it does, but rechargeable batteries take most of the pain out of that.
It was $40 when I bought it a little more than a year ago.
I’ve tried a Microsoft as well as a couple of cheap no-brand optical mice and don’t see too much difference. The surface makes a big difference though. Remember, optical mice work by “looking” at the movement of the desk/pad surface texture. Some mous pads and desks are so flat that optical mouse can’t pick up any textures. It’s best to buy a mouse pad designed for optical mice.
My Microsoft optical mouse is not one of those super fancy ones. I got it because it can be used either left- or right-handed, unlike some of those extremely odd ones with great big humps in the middle of them.
I’ll chime in in favour of the Microsoft Intellimouse Optical. Like Geoduck, I really like the fact that I can program the buttons to do different functions based on the app I’m using. Once you train your fingers to click the button instead of navigating through a menu, or typing keystrokes, it makes life much easier.
I see it’s $45 from Microsoft, but I’m sure you could find it cheaper elsewhere.
Get the one you linked to, its awesome, easily the best input device I’ve ever gotten. Thing works all the way across the room if you want it to.
Here are pictures of my mouse. I like her very much so. Her name is Doris.
Doris is a standard two button, one wheel, optical mouse. I’ve had no problems with her and I’ve had her for a little over a year. She was very cheap, too. There were five Dorises to a box and the box was around $65, if I remember correctly.
I also give kudos to the Logitech MX 300. I use it and its very good.
If you’re dead set on something ergonomic with a lot of buttons, the MX500 is the wired variant of the MX700 you linked to. Its the same exact mouse but lighter. I’ve used it a few times as well, and I like it a little better than the Intellimouse.
I have the wired version of the one you linked to in the OP, and I love it. Not a single complaint, and it feels awesome in my hand.