The early mice were a nice size and managed to fit all the parts inside. But it seems the parts have gotten smaller and the bodies have gotten enormous and form-fitting. Why in the world is this the trend? Using these things is awful!
Hands are designed to manipulate things that are not shaped like the space around the hand. Pencils are pretty perfect, except for fine-tuning the texture of the grip perhaps. You don’t want to put the hand and wrist in a cast and attach the pencil to it.
Making the mouse fit the hand means you can’t manipulate it by flexing the fingers, you have to move your entire arm around. Arms don’t have dexterity.
Does anybody make mice that are designed for hands to use, as opposed to mice that fit the shape of hands? Portable computer mice come the closest, and I’ve tried a few, but they tend to be unreliable and to have very flimsy cables with spring reels that are out of place in a desktop environment.
The ones sold as “portable” are too small for me, and I’ve got size 4 hands. Part of the way I move the mouse is pushing it with the thumb’s “pillow”, which with those is floating in the air.
I always grab mice to test for size and usability before buying one; always use mice I bought rather than the too-big ones corporate gives me. Gaming mice? Impossible. Apparently whomever designs those thinks that all gamers have shovel-sized hands. shows her dainty-sized paws
The one I use most is an old roller from Logitech.
I usually use mine by moving my wrist, not my arm. But if you’re looking for something that you can manipulate with your fingers, have you looked into getting a trackball?
My Logitech mini optical mouse (for home laptop) is the most comfortably sized mouse I’ve ever used. If it’s “mini,” though, the regular size must be enormous. Trackballs make my thumb ache. I had to use one here (at work) before the nice computer guys brought me the tiny optical mouse I use now, which is a lot smaller than the Logitech.
Yes, I know the link is to the Wal-mart page, but I couldn’t seem to find the thing on Logitech’s page.
The OP is very odd. I use a really el-cheapo $9 optical mouse on a mousepad with a gel wrist rest. I just checked how it works and I could sit here until I died and never lift my wrist from the pad - going around the whole monitor with the cursor uses about 1/3 of the mousepad. He must be using 19th Century mice.
According to this website my hands are “extra small” and I’ve never had a problem with the size of mice - even when I was a child and my hands were even smaller. Well, I think the mouse on my boss’ laptop is too small, but other than that… Napier, can we get a link to the mouse you’re using?
I got a miniature mouse as bit of branded swag from a vendor once. I got rid of it a couple of weeks later. It was too small. Honestly, for me, this really is the perfect size.
Apparently the OP has small hands. It’s good to see that there are mini-mice out there to accomodate small hands. Me, I’ve got the opposite problem. My hands are a bit larger than average, and normal sized mice have always seemed a smidge on the small size. Fortunately for me, the trend lately seems to be towards making even larger mice, so I’m a happy camper.
The OP’s hands measure 8 3/4 inches per the site elfkin477 references. That puts me closest to medium but on the small side.
The two computers in my daytime office have a Dell IntelliMouse 1.3A PS/2 compatible mouse, and a Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical USB and PS/2 compatible mouse which is very similar to Cervaise’s linked pic.
I tried two notebook-sized mice that look like the Mini-mice link. Both died within a few days, by eventually constantly trying to send the cursor to the right at a faster and faster speed when I wasn’t touching them. I also have one now that looks like the Mini-mice except it has a glowing underbelly that constantly changes color - it looks silly as hell and is weirdly glossy and slippery, but it does fit nicely. Sometimes I accidentally trigger its spring-retracting reel and it runs screaming away from me - they’re really for travel. When I try all the mice in computer stores, those travel mice feel best, so I guess I’m staying with those.
Don’t ask, I’m using 21st century mice. The issue isn’t that the mouse pad is too small, it’s the mouse itself that is too big. The travel is fine - and adjustable of course.