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Top Mice Compared
Johnny writes "Unfortunately mice are one of the most overlooked computer peripherals, while in reality should be one of the first places where your hard earned cash should be invested in. TechSpot has posted a round-up of some of the best mice currently available in the market: Logitech's MX1000 and MX518, Razer's Viper and Diamondback, and from Microsoft, the Wireless Intellimouse Explorer and the Optical Mouse by S+ARCK."
When I recently started feeling a tingling smarting pain in my right arm, I got a Perific Dual Mouse and after the first week I not only have gotten used to it, I'm also almost symptom-free. I tend to change between using it as a regular mouse and setting it on end and using it as a trackball. Sometimes, I use it with the pistol-grip but rarely use the two-handed grip. It's a bit smaller than the Logitechs I'm normally used to, but it's pretty easy to switch between them. If you have any kind of RSI condition or even if you're afraid of getting it, I'd strongly recommend looking into the Perific mouse.
Money for nothing, pix for free
Mice, Keyboards, and Monitors.
Sure, you can deal with your computer being a little slow, but skimp on the above and you can wreck your wrests, posture, and eyes.
I've been trying to figure out what the best Bluetooth mouse on the market is. Any recommendations or opinions?
With a gel wrist pad, your arm only moves when you want it to, and there's no RSI or other nerve damage.
And you can use it on any surface, since it doesn't move.
I've been using trackballs for about 10 years now, can't stand regular mice anymore.
Logitech seems to make the best ones. Their Trackman series is my favorite.
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
I've been using a trackball for a couple years now. I enjoy it much more than a regular mouse. Its not only perfect when desk space is at a premium, but also in reducing RSI. When your are can remain in one position, its less likely that it will get into an uncomfortable/unnatural position which could cause injury. I also find it more accurate than a mouse, or at least as accurate. I find that they don't need to be cleaned as often, because they aren't rolling around on a dirty surface. Unless you don't wash your hands. Also, it's nice to be able to click without having to worry about moving the pointer.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Microsoft mice have always felt cheap and tacky to me. Logitech mice have the best feel of the major brands. I would recommend them to anybody. Genius make some decent mice at the low-end. They don't feel quite as nice as Logitech, but they're a bit cheaper and they're far ahead of the MS ones.
OLPC Australia
uhm, well if the mice are made there then they could be simple and cheap.. of course if they are made here, then would be complex and expensive but there would be jobs to pay for them.. so don't keep the mice cheap!
Vote for the 300$ mouse Now!!
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
They would sell more mice if they didn't name them after poisonous serpents. What? Are they trying to scare the other mice away?
Basically the review of the Razer's Viper is "that mouse is crap", so why not review some more interesting one instead ? That leaves only 2 mice, not much of a review I'm afraid. Next !
the mice compare PC users, so they can find the Ultimate Question to Life, Universe and Everything!
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u r no einstein
I hate mice and would much prefer a good quality keyboard with pointing stick like the IBM notebooks. Preferably something matching layout of my notebook keyboard, and comfortable for lap or desktop use.
Is a periperal like his marketed? Pointer?
The Optical Intellimouse Explorer. It's big enough that you can comfortably set your palm on it and the forward/backward browsing buttons mean you never even have to move your hands.
No need to RTFA, this puppy's the winner and it's 5 years old.
I cannot use another mouse -- especially one of those archaic ones with the stupid balls that do nothing more than collect cat fur.
I always had problems with mice skipping when I moved them too fast. Then I bought the MX510. As I am concerned it is pointless for me to get a higher resolution mouse and now that they are $30 on newegg there is no reason to not at least achieve that level of performance.
All this talk of the mice, but what of 'high-performance' mousepads? I recently upgraded from a regular wooden desk to a 20$ job, I can't remember the name of the company, something 1080, but the mouse just glides across it. I personally think this was an excellent upgrade to make, not only for gaming, but overall computing pleasure...I'm even contemplating purchasing a second for my work machine...
I have a MS natural keyboard and a 5 button optical intellimouse.
Considering the complaints about their software, does anyone else fint it interesting that their hardware usually does remarkable well in reviews?
I guess this is the advantage of not having a monopoly.
I prefer a track ball.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Unfortunately mice are one of the most overlooked computer peripherals, while in reality should be one of the first places where your hard earned cash should be invested in.
... oh forget it. I started to be perverted, but I feel like breaking precedent today....
It is the first place my right hand goes when I set down at the computer. Shortly afterwards, the left hand
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
"while in reality should be one of the first places where your hard earned cash should be invested in"
OK, sure because mouse resolution and "mousing surfaces" are what most people really care about. I've been a system builder for better than 10 years and while a good mouse is important, good can easily be a $6.00 optical mouse made by Mitsumi. The first place to spend my cash? I think not. While twitch gamers get so hyped up on mice and surfaces its almost retarded, and regular users just want a mouse that works doesn't cripple them and responds well. Personally I still use my trusty iFeel Optical Mouseman by Logitech, probably about 7 years old with no issues or problems... cost? $12.99
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
While I use a mouse at work, I use a Wacom tablet at home. Wonderful.
Try the MX1000, and let us know--the article claims it tracks on glass!
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
You represent the United States Government! NEVER end a sentence with a preposition.
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Granted, I think I can see the point of spending a few extra dollars on an ergonomic keyboard (read: $20, versus $10 for a regular one), and spending a few more dollars on wireless seems luxurious to me at best. An extra $5 on a gel pad or something should prevent most stress injuries, and *gasp* NOT typing for a minute or two helps too.
But spending almost $50 on a massive clump of a mouse that (in the end) really doesn't do more than a normal mouse? Save for maybe targetting airliners or blinding your friends, a laser pointer in a mouse has a minimal effect on 99% of anything you would use a mouse for. Unless, of course, you're using the thing on a rocky floor or something, in which case you have more important things to worry about.
Unless these things drop down in price to the $5 of my two button wireless laptop mouse w/scrollwheel (made in China baby $), they're almost not worth reporting.
Well, as a heavy duty console user myself, I'd damn well like to see something less half arsed than the right thumbstick for aiming. No, the touch screen on the DS isn't it either. I said _less_ half arsed.
Been talking with a gamer co-worker some months ago, and we came up with "well, why the heck doesn't anyone use a trackball?"
Just think about it. Replace the right thumbstick with a trackball, and you suddenly have a device that can actually work as well as a mouse for either FPS or RTS. (The weakest uses of a gamepad at the moment.) Or close enough. I had co-workers which were good at Half Life multi-player with a trackball, so it can't be too bad.
And it seems to me like it _can't_ be that me and said co-worker are the only smart people on Earth. Surely others had the same idea by now. So WTH is preventing Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo from making a controller like that? Did someone already patent a gamepad with a trackball, or?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
The biggest problem with intellimouse explorer is that the middle button only works if you turn the wheel a bit when you press it down. Very poor design that.
It is also a bit tricky to work the side button closest to the front of the mouse unless you have long thumbs.
Wouldn't it have been nice if this slashvertisement ('Images courtesy of Newegg', etc.) had at least some useful information about driver support for all our favourite operating systems?
What are extra buttons on a mouse useful for if I can't use them?
I bought a Logitech MX-700 a few years ago and it's probably the best mouse I've ever had. The only complaint I have is that it tends to "jitter" when sitting in certain spots on my mousepad. I haven't tested a new pad, yet, but if I were looking for a new mouse right now, I can tell you I'd head straight for that MX-1000.
"There are more important things than stopping terrorism. Upholding the Constitution is one of them." - Ars Forumer.
Top mouse eaten by Topcat. Film at 11.
Unknown host pong.
Trackballs concentrate the work of mousing on either your finger flexors or your thumb. If you do a lot of mousing, that can be a problem.
Worse, though, since your entire upper arm is frozen while you use a trackball it's easy to develop thoracic outlet syndrome, in which a drooping collarbone cuts off the nerves to the entire arm.
The absolute best thing is to have three or four pointing devices, and either cycle through them or have them in various positions on your desk. Just as machinists have long been taught to stand with one foot up on a box, then switch feet often, the key is to have recovery time.
I bought the MS wireless mouse a few months ago. I could not get used to the lack of tactile feedback on mouse scrollwheel. This makes it next to useless in games, where flicking it back and forth the wrong amount would give you the handknife instead of the rocket launcher. In other apps, the consequences aren't quite as bad, but I still want to be able to consistently advance pages by "3 clicks", or consistent zoom from 100% to 50%, etc.
This mouse lives in a drawer now. Maybe I'll drag it out someday when that "smooth" extra axis might be marginally useful for VRML and X3D or something. But I just use a plain MS 5-button USB scroll mouse now.
I was thinking of getting an MX1000 to replace my MX600 (came in a duo package with a keyboard).. anyone know if its worth the upgrade? And for that matter, any idea if my keyboard will work with the 1000's RF reciever?
I like optical mice because they don't get full of fluff. The problem I did have with them is that they don't like shiny desk surfaces. So I got the Logitech MX1000.
On a polished pine desk it never misses a twitch. It's very sensitive so I can minimize my wrist movement and maintain precision, and I get to say i have a laser mouse. The battery lasted a week away on business (using the mouse all day) without needing charging or even dipping below two bars out of three. It's just a shame it's an IR laser and you can't see it.....
Very much worth the price tag.
'Pointing stick', is that the nipple/clit thing, usually in between G/H/Y or H/J/U?
Can't stand those. It's like playing Missile Command with a kernel of corn.
first places where your hard earned cash should be invested in
Fine, if you like one mouse more than another that's lovely.
But unless you have actual medical evidence that one mouse is better than another, I'll stick with my el cheapo free-with-the-machine mouse and not buy something expensive just because you think it's important.
--- These are not words: wierd, genious, rediculous
Not for you. All these mice have >1 button
I always use the Logitech Trackman. I even purchased one for work. Since I am on a PC all day, these have saved my wrists. My wrist used to get sore for days when I was using a normal mouse full time. Since I switched to the trackman, I haven't had any soreness since.
The Trackman fits your hand like a glove, and your thumb sits right on the ball and is super easy to use. My only gripe is that I wish it had another button or 2. That would make it much nicer for gaming. I use this for WoW, and it is good enough, but for an FPS game it's not perfect.
/. ++
IBM keyboards are available like this. Not sure of the part #, possibly external notebook kbs, as they are quite small..
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
I mentioned this before, but I'm pretty disappointed with the lack of force feedback in mice these days. I use a Logitech iFeel mouse. Although the force function hasn't been getting much use lately, in the few (few is an overstatement) applications (games) that DO use it, the effect is highly appreciated.
... pandimensional hyperintelligent beings?
If not then they aren't good enough for me.
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I've got the MX1000. I more-or-less agree with what the review says about it except for two things: 1. An additional con should be that the recharch station is also the receiver, so you have to have that honkin thing sitting out in the open (relatively). 2. I find this statement at the end laughable - "Best Precision and Responsiveness: Logitech MX 1000". THIS MOUSE IS 800 DPI FOLKS! If you do precise graphics editing and/or you are a fairly skilled twitch gamer, this mouse is not for you. The mouse does work fine for mere mortal gamers like myself though.
An employee suggested to me that we buy mice for few offices here as an evaluation. I was skeptical at first but he explained the benefits of using it for our employee's day-to-day notekeeping and organization. So I decided to let him install the mice (microsoft intellimouse I think) into 5 offices to see how the employees got on. Besides, our IT manager had been using a mouse in his office and it seemed to work fine, why not try it on the client offices?
Once he'd got the mice up and running with Windows we let the users try it out. It all seemed fine to start with: mice was a pretty good replacement for keyboards and the users could still do their work as normal.
Alas it did not stay that way. After a few days, I had lost count of the number of complaints received from users who could not find things they were used to (like the "any" key) or tasks they could not perform that they previously could with the keyboard. The constant clicking began to make using a mouse a burden on our office supplies. The final straw came when one employee lost several hours work when the mouse suddenly had an error rolling on the mousepad and corrupted his paint drawing.
Needless to say, the mouse team offered no support whatsoever. I made the employee remove the mice from the offices and lets just say he's not with us anymore.
with audio input!
I have one, and no, it doesn't... It tracks on a lot of surfaces, but not glass or mirrors... and you must keep it close to the surface to track--it's a lot more sensitive than an optical in that way. After you have it for two days, you adjust and it's not a big deal.
On the plus side, it tracks very nicely, and is very precise. It's definately a very good mouse for any FPS gamer--I never have it jump around, and I can move pixel by pixel, even at high sensitivities.
The first MX1000 I had was defective, used to jitter around--I called logitech and they replaced the mouse. They spoke English well, didn't put me on long holds, and resolved my issue promptly. Definately have good things to say about their customer service.
To all you people out there whining about the price of gaming mice... these products aren't for you. It's like whining about the price of dragsters compared to an Escort.
-=Lothsahn=-
"Now, Earth creature," he said, "the situation we have in effect is this. We have, as you know, been more or less running your planet for the last ten million years in order to find this wretched thing called the Ultimate Question."
"Why?" said Arthur, sharply.
"No - we already thought of that one," said Frankie interrupting, "but it doesn't fit the answer. Why? - Forty-Two ... you see, it doesn't work.
Ooops. Sorry. Should have RTFA. Wrong Top Mice. I'll go away now.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
Anybody else notice that the reviewer never tested ANY of the mice with a left-handed user?
All those "its ergonomic" Pro points would have been reversed, and suddenly the 2 Razers and the Starck thing would be the more ergonomic mice.
You can use a mouse with the PS2 you ignorant fuck.
Razer Diamondback
Pro "5.8 megapixels, 6,400+ frames per second image capture"
Eh???
Maybe they're just trying to see if we actually read tfa. I'm guessing that the writer didn't actually measure this spec. Stuff like this makes me suspicious about the integrity of the article.
It's obviously just pasted in from the manufacturer's literature.
Its an RT3200 and I believe it comes with their rackmount servers. Its a fantastic feeling keyboard that I would recomend to anyone.
Here ya go:
m #kbmrf100
http://www.fentek-ind.com/rf-wireless-keyboard.ht
the nipple is in the top right corner, so not quite as handy as a thinkpad.
They do ones with trackballs and touchpads too, but the best mouse is this foot operated one: http://www.fentek-ind.com/nh-mouse.htm
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
man gpm
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I think what's preventing them from coming up with something like a trackball is that, although it would be great for RTS and FPS games, it would suck royally for just about everything else. They need to have one controller that can work for every game produced. Mind you, if they offered something for $30 (price of regular controller), I think i would highly consider getting it. It would make FPS games so much more fun to play. As it is now, I can't stand FPS games on consoles, and refuse to buy them.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I've tried a few, and IMHO lowest profile is best. My fav is the mouse that HP used to ship with their servers; it tapered almost to the desk in the back and was pretty low. Unfortunately I haven't seen anything currently on the shelves that matches it.
Currently I use the cheap Logitechs. I had a couple of Microsoft Intellimouse and bigger Logitech mice, but I dumped them and replaced them with $15 Logitech models.
The mice I find the least comfortable to use are the bulbous ones with lots of buttons (like the MS Intellimouse). The ones I find the most comfortable are low profile and simple (and as a happy coincidence, cheap).
DEFINITELY you stupid stupid cunt.
MX1000 is a really good mice (and yes, it does track on glass), but it's still far too heavy for an FPS gamer (which i'm not, reason why I freaking love my 1000).
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
why oh why do we still use mice keyboards & monitors?
I'm looking at the gyromouse (can be lifted free from the desk) as an absolute comprimise. I can't even run two independent mice at once? I can't even run two independent keyboards at once? (why you ask? macros for one)
I don't care how good they make the "mouse" or the "keyboard" they are next to obsolete in my eyes. The manufacturers just haven't caught up with the present. Are we all still cynical because of movies like lawnmower man? Yes we *should* have direct interaction with the computer. We *should* be able to liberate ourselves from our desks.
i'm more able to expand the functionality & efficiency of my computer by expanding its controls indefinitely with midi. Yes I know it too has its limitations but it was atleast designed to be expandable, not be a static typewriter replacement.
give me an expandable interface. let me connect 10 racks of assignable buttons. Let me rotate an object in maya by grabbing one side of it with one hand and moving the other side. Theres no processing limitation on this, just a lack of vision (or marketability)
ah thats the end of that rant... - 'plex
Rich Gentlemen Hide - The Existential Comic
I use a MX1000 and I'm happy with it for the most part. The battery life is very very good (though I do find it irritating that some reviewers assume the indicator scale is linear. I don't know if it is -- haven't bothered tracking it in detail -- but early reviewers went like "battery time is very good, X hours and only one indicator LED down" -- like that says anything).
Anyhow, the only problem I have is that due to being an "early adopter" I got a base reciever station with an irritating "skip bug" which oddly enough manifests only when using USB, not when using USB->PS2.. So I'm running on the PS/2 adapter (included) with no loss in precision.
The other thing is that you really don't want Logitechs intrusive GiantMouseWare software and drivers under Windows. Best thing is to track down mwadvanced_enu.exe on their homepage and change the acceleration curve to "OS implementation" and "tracking optimization" to "precision". This gives perfect smooth motion. Very nice.
I used several MS IntelliMouse Optical before, but they seemed to always break down in exactly the same way after a year or two. MX1000 are just as good "feelingwise", no problem with it being cordless at all.
I should also mention that I'm a leftie and tend to switch between using the mouse in my left and right hand. I have no problem using the MX1000 in my left hand at all. Sure ,the "groove" for the thumb won't be in the right place, but the mouse actually fit pretty good anyhow.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Because when I bought a computer [number] years ago, it came with a perfectly good mouse and I havent have any need for a new one since, even though I've gone through three complete systems since then. I'd love a 128-button 37-wheel 184-axis mouse which is fully programmable to perform any function using an embedded linux, but those dont exist. So I'll settle for two buttons, one wheel, optical, with a fucking cord because a fucking cord is a good thing (you fucking anti-cord nazis)
And yes, I really would love a full-fledged Linux system embedded into my keyboard and mouse. Think of it as a word proccessor with really great macro capabilities that can also be used as a keyboard for your computer. We have the technology to make 50,000,000 calculations between the time I press the "n" key and the time the keyboard sends its signal to the PC with no noticeable delay, why are we not using this technology to create intelligent keyboards which can bind absolutely any key sequence or function in general for that matter to a single key?
HEY SLASHDOT: CAPTCHAS SUCK.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I think he was refering to a Unix console and not a gaming console.
E.g., if you read the very first page of the review, about the MX1000: "As with optical mice, if you don?t make use of it for several seconds, the battery indicator turns off and the mouse goes into power saving mode."
Now I am a hardcore twitch-gamer, and let me tell you that those power saving delays are what gets you killed in multi-player. You end up doing weird stuff like slightly waving the scope around when you wait for a target as a sniper, because otherwise you have that brief wake-up delay when you do need the mouse.
I had an MX500 and went and bought an MX300 with a cord instead.
Basically my take is that it's a mouse that isn't really good for either. For twitch gaming I _really_ want a corded one, for someone who just browses the web, as you've said, a $6 mouse works just as well. So who are the target demographic that absolutely needed it?
The SFV (Stupid Fashion Victims). The people who buy for the buzzwords and the hype. OOOH, IT'S LASER!
As someone who actually spent a lot of time studying physics, lemme tell you what you probably already knew or suspected: there is nothing magical about laser light in a mouse.
Yes, you can use the coherent light wonderfully for other purposes. But an optical mouse works more or less like a camera: it compares consecutive snapshots and determines the movement from the difference. Increasing the resolution or the number of snapshots per second, yeah, that'll make it a better mouse. Putting a laser diode instead of a regular LED in it, however, won't do jack.
Logitech's problem is: the keyboards and mice business isn't a great place to be in. You won't make a big fortune by selling el-cheapo $6 mice. So they just need some buzzword to allow them to sell a $50 one instead. That's all.
And if you put up enough hype, there'll be enough SFVs that believe it. And enough sites who aren't even as much review sites, but prom queens: they just print whatever is currently popular and brings page views. They catter to stroking the ego of those who already knew which buzzword they really want to buy. If enough SFVs fall for a buzzword, those sites will dutifully print an article telling them how good it really is, and how pleased they can be with that purchase.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
As I excel in my computer skills, I learn more and more that no one should need a mouse. The mouse is very slow and I find that using the keyboard to complete "mouse" tasks, is alot faster and more efficient. The goal of the computer industry is to cut down on periferals and simplify they way we use a computer. I hardly ever touch the mouse anymore it is only an object for my gamming pleasure.
My wife and I bought a Logitech wireless keyboard/mouse combo a while back, but we had to return it within a couple of days. We're regular RPG players and we found the games nearly unplayable with the setup we bought. The problem was with the delay time between the movement signals being sent from the mouse and being recieved and acted upon by the computer. Our characters kept running into walls , falling off cliffs, etc! Granted, we didn't buy the most expensive set you can get but I can't imagine that there are any wireless mice that don't have a signal delay of some kind when compared to a "wired" one. We did some searching on forums online and found that many gamers have had the same problem. It seems like most of them go for top-of-the-range "wired" mice instead of wireless. So, just something to consider when you're shopping...
I've got a bunch of Logitech mice, the early MS Bluetooth mouse and some cheap junk, but the best mice by far are my two Razer Diamondbacks. If I can help it, I'll never by a mouse from anyone other than Razer ever again.
IBM part number 31P8950. USB, has both the track point and the touchpad (you can turn off either one). They're around $100. Our firm has two people that use them and wouldn't want anything else.
Being a Diamondback owner and having done all the research into what became my purchase of the ultimate performance mouse, the contest boils down to two of the four mice listed -- the MX518 and Razer Diamondback, which have virtually identical optical sensors. The MX1000 and Razer Viper have older, less capable sensors, and at least one of those mice has known to be plagued with ugly tracking and pixel skipping problems.
I'm partial. If I'm to recommend one mouse over the other, go out and fetch the Diamondback. Razer is even planning special edition versions of the mouse with green optics, and already they have a plasma blue version released, which looks pretty damn sweet. http://razerzone.com/
- IP
Am I the only one who uses the gyra mouse? Come on, someone else had to have been suckered by the 'waving in the air' gimmick and the pics of workers with their legs up. Still it is a decent technology with all the funcionality of a 'normal' mouse. have no idea when their patent?! ends but would like to see some competition on that front.
I use the Nyko Airflow Mouse http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/6afa/, and I find that it works well. It has a 2 speed fan in it that cools your hand while you work. The fan is ever so slightly out of balance, so it vibrates just enough to massage your hand too.
I for one welcome our new [insert main topic] overlords.
So, I realise this is a bit off topic, but does anyone out there know of a company that makes decent mice, or preferably trackballs, for left handers? I currently use a Logitech Marble Mouse trackball, which is hand-neutral, but I'd much rather get a left-handed trackball that I could use with my thumb (imagine any of the other logitech trackballs reversed).
Anyone? Please?
At my secondary school, connected to a bunch of crumbling Acorn Archimedes computers were some rather cool trackballs. Enormous things (a fair bit taller than the keyboard and deeper too) with giant balls about 5cm diameter. (Fnar.)
The angular momentum involved meant you could flick the ball with your fingers and have the mouse pointer spin right across the screen, at which point you'd put your fingers back on to it to stop. This came complete with a rumbling noise akin to a higher-pitched Raiders of the Lost Ark big-crushing-stone-ball.
Can you still do this with modern trackballs (the ones I've used since have been tiny and hopeless)? The miniaturisation of computer technology is terribly disappointing...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
Switching to a trackball helped, but the callus built up over years of using a standard movable mouse just keeps on growing and growing...
Newsfollow.com
Okay, here you go: PCKeyboard.com
They've got a range of interesting models, including IBM Type M keyboards. I've been considering getting the mini-keyboard with integrated pointing stick. Major drawback: Their products are very expensive, $40 to $100 or more for some models. (The "value" model is $7 and essentially a generic keyboard.)
--Ender
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
When thumbsticks appeared on console pads, they were in addition to the accepted d-pad, and were similar enough to the already accepted joystick to be reasonable. The trackball holds limited appeal to the population at large considering most use a mouse, and thus to include one in addition to a d-pad and a thumbstick would be unwieldy and unlikely to be accepted en-masse, imho. Interesting idea though, and I don't see why an aftermarket controller that replaced the thumbstick with a trackball couldn't be successful.
Well, dunno, for just about every console game I've played so far it's the _left_ thumbstick that gets used the most. The _right_ stick is in most non-FPS and non-RTS games not even used at all, or assigned some totally secondary role that wouldn't be any worse with a trackball.
E.g., in Jade Empire the right stick is only used for scrolling in the text boxes. Would that "suck royally" with a trackball? No, I don't think it would.
I've given a lot of thought to it after that talk with the co-worker, and I haven't come up with a single game that would "royally suck" if (only) the right stick were replaced with a trackball. Again, leaving the left stick as it is. Just the right one gets replaced in that idea.
But I'm open to the possibility that I'm wrong. If you do know games where replacing (only) the right stick with a trackball just couldn't possibly work, please do share that information.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Keyboards are where the action is really at.
;-> Retro does not mean retrograde!
I only leave the keyboard for Windows Update (although this has improved in version 5 - only need two tab-presses to get to the custom button) and all those (generally GTK) apps that don't have menu activators.
When using a mouse - I loathe opticals: you cannot lift the mouse and start again - you end up having to move across the desk!!! What kind of degradation is that ?!! Much better than the fact that they only work on "certain" surfaces anyway unlike my trusty balls
Other than that, when it comes to laptops - sticks are easier for me, because you do not have to move your hand. I really struggle with pads.
Basically, when at any of my computers, I try to minimise the amount I have to move my arms. When typing - I barely move at all. When having to use a mouse, I only have to move my arm when using an optical.
Hope you enjoyed my ramble.
Did anybody else notice that the "next page" buttons in the article didn't work and you have to click the text below it?
How wank!
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I would rank them like this:
Monitor
Mouse/Keyboard (It's hard to say which of these is more important.)
I spent $900 on a 21" Professional Series Viewsonic P815(Review. Pic.) about five years ago and haven't regretted it for a second since. I'm still using the same monitor. I've been very protective of it and managed to keep the screen from getting scratched for four years. I baby it to death (clean the screen with NOTHING but water and a paper towel), buckle it up when going to lan parties etc. The only thing that sucks about it is that it weighs 60lbs! Not fun to lug to LAN parties!
I'd say mouse/keyboard are on about the same level because if either one is skimped on you could be hurting.
I originally bought a split keyboard because I'm a touch typest and I thought it would be 1337, but now I can hardly type on a non-split keyboard, it feels awkward. I do like the IBM style pointing stick in the middle of the keyboard. That is so handy when you just need to move the mouse a bit while typing. That's the only thing I wish my keyboard had that it doesn't.
Question everything
While I realize that gaming is where all the high-tech stuff is these days (I use a Nostromo HID with CAD after all), but how about a review that checks for consistency and accuracy?
i love this mouse. the little ball lets me do horizontal as well as vertical scrolling. works under X as a 7button mouse without additional kajiggering. i only wish the scrollball were also optical, since it's a pain to clean.
Am I the only one who dislikes the roller-type three-butten rodents and is having trouble finding normal three-butten ones these days?
Currently I got so used to "clickless wheels" in mice that I find it hard to use a mouse with standard "clicking wheel" where I have to use some force to turn it. I always remove the spring that's responsible for blocking the wheel from mice I use. For my home use I went further though - removing the rubber band and replacing it with a custom-made metal ring. One push and I'm 20 pages further. Picture. Great for websurfing, reading/writing and all that stuff. (*disclaimer* This sucks for games.)
My guess is that there are too many moving parts in trackballs to use in a gamepad as those are designed for durability and decreased cost.
Well, it would also need some kind of support from the games. If, say, MadCatz or Thrustmaster produced a gamepad with a trackball for the XBox or GameCube, it would die a silent death without the games actually supporting it.
Just pretending that it's a thumbstick wouldn't solve much, IMHO. To actually be an improvement, it would need to be read and used as a mouse: i.e., actually transmit the distance moved to the game, and not emulate a deviation from the centre position.
But again, that would need games to be prepared to accept X and Y travel distances instead of the thumbstick data.
And I really can't see anyone except Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo making the game developpers do that.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
There's a well known mouse benchmark out there, i'm surprised they did not use it in the article.
But well, maybe the authors are just not fast enough at minesweeper to make mousing be the only bottleneck...
[i have an opinion and i am not afraid to use it]
is A4tech. Two rollers, five buttons. Because I have five digits on my hand.
There you are, staring at me again.
Can anybody recommend a left handed trackball?
Aside from the fact that I'm left-handed, I find more balance in keeping the mouse on the left (with the numberpad on the right). As rare as left-handed mice are, I've always just stuck with symmetrical, ambidextrous mice and trackballs.
I also happen to be quite a fan of Logitech products, so their recent trend towards right-hand specific mice with myriad buttons is not a happy trend for me at all.
I'm very left handed, and it annoys me that all the high end mice are right hand only. I'm sure there are left handed gamers out there (I'm not one of them).
I used a Logitech First WheelMouse for probably 5 years. Once the Mouseware drivers allowed me to assign "copy" to clicking the wheel, I never looked back.
A few months ago I decided my mouse was getting tired, and started looking around online. I decided to go optical, and having used a wireless optical mouse not long before, opted against that because the weight of it made the existence of batteries in it very obvious. I could probably get used to it, but the first impression wasn't good.
Since there are no left handed mice, I have to settle for a hand neutral model. I settled on the Logitech MX310: it's partly black, hand neutral, optical, and a Logitech.
As soon as I downloaded the lastest Mouseware, I restored the wheel click to "copy", and the other three extra buttons to "paste", "cut", and "undo". I find this to be incredibly efficient, as I don't have to go back and forth to the keyboard or seek for menus as often.
Too bad I can't use it like that through my KVM.
Not exactly a scientific review. The author concludes the mouse with the best precision and responsiveness is a wireless offering with an 800 DPI sensor (MX1000). Being the nature of wireless mice, the mouse is limited to a 125hz polling rate through the USB port versus a stable 500hz and usable 1khz the wired MX518 and Diamondback are capable of. For the unitiated, polling rates determine how many "snapshots" of the mouse's position that are taken every second. So it's 125 times per second versus 500 or even 1000 times per second on the clearly superior mice (518, Diamondback) the author has overlooked.
The MX1000 is of a mere 800DPI whereas the 518 and Diamondback track at 1600DPI. Probably one advantage is that the mouse has a laser sensor instead of the standard optical one, but in the end it's still an inferior mouse than the 518 and Diamondback, which aside from aesthetics, have identical specifications and should rightfully taken to be the same mouse.
- IP
from tiny buttons to large marble balls that kids can take out and smash on the ground, modern day mouse/trackball designers are absolutly stupid when it comes to common sense and logical thinking. more buttons on a mouse doesn't really improve performance, nor does futuristic looking designs where noone can make heads and tails of where the buttons are.
I was pleasantly surprised when I found out how much more efficient the traveler size mouse over the convensional size mouse after I started to play some flash games where the efficiency of using one's mouse became apparant. I would like to share some personal findings on efficncy of a mouse.
First and fore most, I would like to discuss about the scroll wheel. The scroll wheel is a good idea. However, it isn't in the right place. For human beings, our thumb and index finger are much much more efficient and accurate than our middle finger. So it made absolutly no sense to put the scroll wheel in the middle of the mouse. Since the index finger is occupied by the left button, it makes sense to use a person's thumb for scroll wheeling. In stead of aquire motor skills with your middle finger. Further more, what's with scroll wheels and tilt wheels anyhow? wouldn't it be easier just to use a trackball system for scrolling? think about it, how natural a person will feel with a scrolling ball controlled by the thumb!
In the world of mouse, bigger isn't better! big mice are bulky, makes a person's hand bump into other items on the desk; and not only slow down pointing process, but dimishes accuracy as well. Now I am not saying small is better, but size of the mouse should be proportionally smaller to a person's hand by 30%.
Simple and elegant is better! even though when a mouse offers 10 programmable buttons, I found myself hardly ever use them. This is because of several reasons:
1. Additional driver software causes the computer to lag. This is mostly due to inefficient software packages that eats ton of processing time and memory just to listen and opt an extra button.
2. Most software package don't take advantage from those extra buttons, and they certainly don't act uniformly toward the function selection.
3. Buttons interfere with regular mouse functions (especially logitech mice where there's tiny buttons near the scroll wheel. It's easy to push them by accident and screw things up)
4. Somes those extra buttons just outright don't work.
5. Special functions are not supported over a KVM
In most cases, mice is about inflated price and step by step technology improvement. and in most cases, designer mice gets sold without much consideration of the users. This trend should stop and the mice world needs another revolution to correct the current trend of things.
I owned one of the original Boomslangs. It was the best mouse for gaming at the time. Nobody even came close. It broke my heart when they shutdown. I got to a point where I needed new drivers and had to put that mouse away.
:).
I've owned close to two dozen aftermarket mice, including that 3d mouse-on-a-stick thing that Logitech made for awhile. But I always come back to Logitech. There ergonomics have always been superior to the competition.
I've currently got 2 Mx700s and a several older mice for backup. The one not being used is always in the charger so I never have to worry about my battery dying. I'll probably upgrade to the Mx1000 but really haven't had a strong reason to change.
The only mouse that ever consistently gave me wrist problems was the old Sun optical mouse that need the shiny mouse pad with a grid on it. Having an third mouse button was a great step up for me (at the time), but I was limited to only 14 hours of work before my wrist failed to work.
The only alternative I've considered going back to was an IBM keyboard with the touchpad and the track-point eraser thing in the middle of the keyboard. I loved it because of the fact that I didn't have to move my hand back and forth between the keyboard to the mouse. It sped things up for me and reduced the wear and tear on hand and wrist noticably.
In case you haven't noticed, I take mice very seriously
In bargain bins, in discount stores etc. Just next to 2-button mice. They are considered "a notch above the cheapest of the cheapest" and you find them among those, e.g. $3 chineese mice. It will be hard to find a new high-end 3-button mouse though. You can look for used ones though.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
Me, on the other hand, only touch the mouse with the tips of my fingers, and keep the rest of my hand fairly still. If the mouse is "ergonomic" I tend to bump my hand into its overgrown hump at the top.
A mouse should be low and most importantly: light. That way I can easily move the cursor across the screen without moving anything except my fingers.
I'll stick with my Logitech Trackman Marble F/X trackball. Having picked it up in 1997, I hope it never dies, as I can see no replacement for it anytime soon. It's easily the most ergonomic mouse I've ever used, and what's even cooler is it's the same one used to pilot Moya on Sci-Fi's Farscape.
The Chronic *WHAT* les of Narnia!
When my body started to develop symptoms of RSI I got myself a Wacom tablet, an A6 one. They're fairly expensive compared to a cheap mouse, but in my opinion they're worth every penny. It takes a good couple of days to fully adjust to it but once you're hooked you can't imagine working with a mouse anymore. It's much faster, plus the natural grip of a pen is much more confortable. Every once in a while I'm forced to use a mouse and even after 30 minutes I'll start to feel my arm again. So no mice for me anymore.
I purchased a Microsoft Wireless Intellimouse Explorer 2.0 a while ago and it's completely unusable. I switched back to my several year old first generation Logitech optical mouse and it's way better.
The MS mouse is awful because the wheel has no tactile feel to the roll. This is annoying in most apps and impossible to deal with in games. What's worse, the lack of tactile feel means that when you try to push the wheel button, any tiny amount of roll of the wheel will cancel out the button click. Combine that with the fact that the wheel button is difficult to push and I had to click two or three times before I got the click to actually work.
Button layout is another issue. The wheel seems slightly too far away for my average size hands, although that wouldn't be noticable if the wheel button pushed easily. The browser back and forward buttons are a feat of design mastery... they manage to be impossible to push without contorting your fingers and simultaneously very easy to accidentally push.
As if the mouse needed anymore faults, the wireless capability is very weak. At least once a day I'd need to re-sync the mouse to its base station. Every time my 2.4Ghz cordless phone was in use the mouse would barely work and would need to be re-synced after the phone was shut off. Note that my > 6 year old wireless Logitech ball mouse never has this problem.
I spent only about six weeks with the Intellimouse Explorer 2.0 before my four year old knocked it off my keyboard tray onto the carpeted floor and it broke. I have never been so happy to have something break in my life because it finally put an end to me trying to convince myself to keep trying to use the MS mouse until I got used to it.
I am buying logitech from now on, but I can't decide if I should stick with the cheap optical mice or get a fancy one, maybe even a laser mouse. Trouble is, I really don't use any extra functionality of these mice, but they are shaped better.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Take your optical mouse. Move it around as fast as you possibly can (erratically, no circles). Does your cursor skip? Does this 'skipping' upset you? Perhaps you have experienced the release of a single emo mouse tear (this is of course how emo took hold... through LEDs). Buy a MX1000, and tear no more. In all honestly, a MX1000 can speed up your productivity thoroughly once you become accustomed to working at a higher precision setting.
IMHO arrow keys are fine for scrolling documents around (works particularly well when you mouse with the left hand, and the right hand handles the arrow keys). A scrollwheel adds nothing useful, it only complicates things. Epecially in unix/X where the middle button is used a lot, it's annoying that it has a different feel from the other buttons.
I think the current state of mice is due to the misconception that mousing and GUIs are universally easier and more powerful than keyboard/text interfaces. They are not, which you can see in the fact that a mouse nowadays includes an almost full keyboard (pardon the exaggeration, but that's my impression). People are too focused on using the mouse alone, which is why much of keyboard functionality has been duplicated there. Whereas I've experienced that keyb+mouse are powerful together, and I mean simultaneously so that mouse=left and keyb=right (I am right handed).
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Now, the mice that come with some Wacom tablets I do like. I like how they're lightweight, good for left-handed as well as right-handed users (I'm left-handed) and they have this nice thing where their movement is dictated by how you move the mouse across the tablet so that you could rotate the mouse and it would still move along the x and y-axis of the tablet instead of its own "local" axis... (I hope that makes sense)
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
I know, my favourite mouse (Apple wireless) is no use for gaming, it lacks a second mouse-button... hey wait. It lacks a second mouse-button. That's great!
Really, I have trouble typing on anything but a "natural" keyboard. However, I'm forced to use a 3-button-mouse at work, and it hurts. I keep my fingers stretched apart so I can use different buttons with them, but it just doesn't feel natural. On my Mac, I only have one button - the top of the mouse. For me, that's the most ergonomic layout possible. I just place my hand on the mouse the way *I* want and press the whole hand down when clicking. What a relief compared to my 3-button-"monster" at work.
Nice review. But for me it's pretty worthless. But I'm not much of a gamer anyway.
The mouse wheel needs to not be so loose. I have numerous times intended to left click on a link, and instead I end up scrolling down a bit. If they would just tighten it up a bit like their earlier 2-button ball mice.
And why OH why do I have to click into a section first before being able to scroll-wheel around? I swear in the logitech mice days all you needed to be was in the area to scroll without click-focusing first. Argh.
Does anybody know if somebody manufacturers a unit for turning a wired keyboard into a (nearly) wireless keyboard i.e. a little transmitter box that the keyboard plugs into, with a receiver plugged into the PC?
There's a lot of funky keyboards out there that are wired with a PS/2 connector, unfortunately you can't use them the other side of the room.
Vs lbh pna ernq guvf, ybt bss abj. Tb bhgfvqr. Syl n xvgr.
Johnny may be able to read, but he can't write...
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Mmmmm, reminds me of the old razor boomslang....mmm quake...those were the days.
The mini-mouse I use for my laptop two days ago started sensing double-clicks when I've only single-clicked items. I'm looking for a <$50 portable mouse (roughly half the size of a full-sized mouse), with at least the index & middle-finger buttons and a clickable center scroll wheel-- specifically, I don't like wireless mice, and I prefer the conventional form. I don't insist that it has to be a flat little thing like the ones that come with Dells (yuck, actually), but I'm not looking for a pistol-grip either.
Anyone got some recommendations?
Thanks.
Allegedly real newspaper headline from 1998:
Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge
the profit margin on these given the price range must be 400%. So these things probably earn more per unit than selling a dell shitbox, and x-box or maybe even an ipod.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I hate the scrollwheel as third button, however since most mice these days provide additional buttons its easy to just reconfigure any of them as third button, so I don't have to click the scroll wheel ever. The scroll wheel itself however is quite usefull and I wouldn't want to miss it, its only the clicking which makes it annoying, but if you avoid mice with only two normal buttons you shouldn't have to much throuble.
I would like to recommend an IBM keyboard, but it turns out they're apparently quite hard to find a picture of. A couple of my colleagues use them with great delight; I myself prefer full-height keys.
I don't know what ThinkPad you have, but you can get a "framed external" T40-series keyboard with pointer stick and touchpad and everything.
"Good news, everyone!"
The environmental cost should also be considered.
One basic argument against wireless mice and keyboards is that they required batteries. In lots of case the batteries will need changing weekly. This seems ludicrous to me. At least the "wire" mouse will not require batteries so the cost this is lower.
Nice keyboards.
The Micro Innovations SK-7100 is nice. They're PS/2-PS/2 or PS/2-Serial (for the mouse). They use infrared instead of radio.
I don't think they're made any more, but I just ordered one off eBay yesterday for $50.
Panther XL game controler - get one!
... but I like trackpads the best. I had to use one without choice when I bought a powerbook for use on my travels, and mice are just not very fun to use on a plane or train where your arms have to be squished in to your sides.
:)
So I used the trackpad, and now, a few years later, even when I'm on my desk I don't bother with a mouse unless I'm playing some quake.
Very easy to use when typing without moving your arms, very precise after some practise, and it leaves my hands in a comfortable position. Now if only someone would make USB trackpads for desktop computers
Theres no processing limitation on this, just a lack of vision (or marketability)
It's not primarily a vision problem, is it? How many Dvorak layouts and chording keyboards have we seen, just to take that first baby step from the old QWERTY keyboard? Take a look at (pricey) interfaces for people like quadriplegics who can't type; those aren't just letter pickers. On the consumer level, certain markets pretty obviously like tablets. We have "virtual surgery" models that let a Doctor in one country work in another. There are new designs and other ways of doing things being developed, plenty of people have vision. (Not all of them are as big a mess as Tom Cruise's future-reader, either.)
They aren't being adopted, though, and there's a hint of both technical challenge and the weight of existing standards to that. Anyone want to buy my Newton? Anyone want to re-learn how to write every letter of the alphabet in order to use a Palm?
Hate to sound all jargoned up, but I agree -- it seems like there's a paradigmatic shift due here for a while now. The change from core- to flake-based stone age tools would be a good analogy, actually, wouldn't it? But nobody's showing us the sweet spot, the overwhelming advantages to thinking of interfaces 'the other way around.' "Hey, look at these bits of flint we knock off. Let's make the tools out of THOSE instead!"
(Touches monolith. "I'm seeing an orb... An impassive red eye interface.")
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I knew the Logitech MX1000 was good, and the wireless is essential for me. But they don't package it with a keyboard like the MX Duo. Whats a good wireless keyboard? That could go with the MX1000, that I want to get. Any ideas?
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Epecially in unix/X where the middle button is used a lot, it's annoying that it has a different feel from the other buttons.
You should look for mice that have it separate from the wheel then. I love mice with "middle" button under your thumb (on the side of the mouse). This way there's no moving the fingers to reach any of the three buttons, no problem of accidential scrolling when clicking it, and the wheel doesn't get in the way.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
People actually *like* that shit? Wow.
Pointing sticks drive me crazy. On my laptop, I'm always accidentally bumping into the stick while typing (it's between the G, H and B keys). Even worse is that the buttons that go with it are right underneath the spacebar, so I'd often end up selecting some text (click-drag) and replacing it with whatever I typed next.
So I always switch the stick off these days.
Maybe if you spelled "BUTTON" properly, your search would be easier? I don't know, just trying to help.
My MX700 recently died. I'd had it for maybe 3-4 years - got it when they first came out. It stopped charging even after replacing the batteries and vigorously cleaning the brass contacts on both the mouse and charger.
All-in-all i loved the MX700 with one exception - the ergonomics were designed to "rehabilitate" people into using their index finger for the left button, middle finger for the scroll wheel and ring finger for the right button. Naturally, i've always used my index finger for both the left and middle buttons, and middle finger for the right button and found it a wee bit akward to use the mouse for any extended period of time (the sculpted right side of the mouse was a bit uncomfortable using the "traditional" fingering).
Thankfully, they've abandoned this re-Neducation in the MX1000. The ergonomics now allow you to use the mouse with any "reasonable" finger combination you have grown accustomed to. It still has a wicked fast recharge rate, but instead of consumer replaceable AA's they've switched to a non-replaceable litium ion battery. I'm not worried about needing to replace it since i never had to replace the stock AA's that came with the MX700.
I have had some issues with the software in mapping certain keys to do things (forward and back buttons stop working intermittently) but i've been too lazy to reinstall the drivers. I'm fairly sure this will fix the issue.
All in all the MX1000 is a great mouse that i would whole-heartedly recommmend to anyone. It is a bit pricey, but what the hell - when was the last time you upgraded your mouse? You deserve wireless goodness.
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
That mouse (can we consider a trackball a mouse???)... anyway trackball just kicks butt ...
....
.... like those good ol' gravis joysticks :)
..... i am an oldschool guy, if i had one, i would use one of those HEAVY IBM keyboards, strictly 101, and undistructible :) i would probably get a 80hz text only serial console and use no mouse on that beauty of combo :)
A trackball is what most people fear/hate, but if you manage thru that 1-2 days (for me it was 2-3 hours) frustration and clumsiness, you are in business
on the other hand i mostly type into a console
and i mostly use the mouse on my windows screen (i am accessing it with x2vnc and that needs a mouse) that i use for browsing/testing..
and what I would need on a mouse is more buttons, shortcut like programmable stuff
anyway
### Surely others had the same idea by now. So WTH is preventing Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo from making a controller like that?
Nintendo hasn't yet shown its new controller, so we can't be sure what it will have or won't have, after all it should have something 'new', maybe thats a trackball (or gyros or something completly different). It would make sense, since it would be the next logical step in evolution (first C-buttons, then C-stick, now C-trackball).
For Sony and Microsoft, not sure, but they seem to avoid innovation at all cost, the PS3 Pad is still the exact some as the DualShock on the PS1, only the shape has a bit changed, same for the XBox360 Pad.
Backward compatibility to older console games might also play a role, while a trackball could function with basically all console games by principle, it wouldn't work well with many previous generation games, since they use the analog stick in such a way that would be hard to emulate with a trackball. So either those games would need to be patched, the controller would need to provide an additional stick or they would suffer from the new control.
Overall I wouldn't be suprised to see a trackball on a console controller in the next few years, but some company has to make the first step.
Jeez, one of the first topics on mice in a long while (and a review no less), 200 comments, not one mention of this Golden Oldy. Let's lighten things up!
s .htm
Taken from: http://www.neystadt.org/john/humor/IBM-Mouse-Ball
"Memo of the Month," From The Washington Monthly, January/February 1991, page 24:
This is an actual alert to IBM Field Engineers that went out to all IBM Branch Offices. The person who wrote it was very serious. The rest of us find it rather funny.
Abstract: Mouse Balls Available as FRU (Field Replacement Unit)
Mouse balls are now available as FRU. Therefore, if a mouse fails to operate or should it perform erratically, it may need a ball replacement. Because of the delicate nature of this procedure, replacement of mouse balls should only be attempted by properly trained personnel.
Before proceeding, determine the type of mouse balls by examining the underside of the mouse. Domestic balls will be larger and harder than foreign balls. Ball removal procedures differ depending upon manufacturer of the mouse. Foreign balls can be replaced using the pop-off method. Domestic balls are replaced using the twist-off method. Mouse balls are not usually static sensitive. However, excessive handling can result in sudden discharge. Upon completion of ball replacement, the mouse may be used immediately.
It is recommended that each replacer have a pair of spare balls for maintaining optimum customer satisfaction, and that any customer missing his balls should suspect local personnel of removing these necessary items.
To re-order, specify one of the following:
P/N 33F8462 - Domestic Mouse Balls
P/N 33F8461 - Foreign Mouse Balls
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
Something like that would be a good match with a ZUI.
I asked my aunt, who's a hand surgeon, about "ergonomic" input devices, and she told me that the opposite is true. The best thing to do is to move around a lot, so that you don't stiffly stick to one position; she said that a variety of motions is less likely to cause RSI. In her opinion, old-fashioned typewriters were better than modern keyboards because they forced users to lift their hands to return the carriage, roll paper, etc.
I think I'll be building a keyboard hack where every switch is different. =)
i think that's the most cookies i've EVER refused from a single page view.....i think i counted 7....
i was a fiend, before i became a teen...i melted microphones instead of cones of ice cream
I've been using IBM thinkpads ( which come with the integrated pointing stick ) for years at work and I couldn't agree more that they are THE best 'mouse' there is. However, most people I know who try them for the first time, hate them and connect a 'real mouse'.
Even I thought the 'joystick-like' mouse was difficult to get used to at first, but then realised how awesome it was not to have to take your hands off the keyboard to mouse. The pointing stick is right in the center of the keys on the keyboard!
This alone makes the pointing stick far superior to the electrostatic 'pads' that adorn most laptops. The fact that I am always accidentally brushing up against an electrostatic touchpad also counts against them.
But now that I have sufficient practice to deftly click the buttons and boxes that I need to, I wouldn't go back to a mouse unless I had to.
At home, I prefer desktop machines for ease and cheapness of parts for upgradability. A full size keyboard beats a mini too, but not by much. Being cheap, I probably would not shell out $100.00 for the thinkpad style keyboard-with-joystick for my desktop machines.
Optical mice seem nice, wireless or not. But a stationary trackball would be even better because you don't have to lift it all the time. A trackball is what I would get if I were to upgrade from the el-cheapo ps2 $9.95 Wal-Mart special I currently use. The cord is getting kinda short after multiple splices from being chinchilla-eaten.
However, the el-cheapo ps2 mice do have an advantage - they require no drivers. Windows, and every Linux distro I've tried detects them with no hassle.
I got a 'free-hand-me-down' Dell computer that came with a Logitech Wireless Optical Mouse. I installed it to be a second internet access point in the house, and so we could play 'Stronghold' in multiplayer mode. So it has both a Windows and a Linux partition just like the other computer because I can't stand to use Windows for web browsing.
When I installed my pirated copy of Windows, it did not detect the Logitech mouse. Without a working mouse, I decided to install the mouse drivers from the Logitech CD before continuing.
The installer for the logitech drivers also installed tons of spam/spyware. The option to install only the drivers without the spam/spyware was there, but without a working mouse, I had no choice but to accept the default which was to load the computer with tons of spamware kindly provided by Logitech. And tabbing did not work. It was as if Logitech KNEW anyone installing the drivers wouldn't have a working mouse and wanted to force them to accept the spyware.
I was pissed, but I'd take care of removing the spyware after I had a working mouse. Except that the mouse STILL didn't work.
Rather than mess around with it further, I went to Wal*Mart and bought the $9.95 ps2 corded non-optical solution which worked fine. I didn't even TRY to get the optical one working on Slackware because I needed it to also work on Windows too, which it didn't.
But this is an important ( to me ) feature of a 'mouse' - the ability to 'just work' with whatever Linux/Windows I am likely to be using. If I were to upgrade to a trackball, I'd want to be sure that it would 'just work'. Ideally, my computer should not know the difference between it and the PS2 $9.95 Wal*Mart special I have plugged in now.
I am somewhat open to a USB solution, as I realize PS2 is going away soon. But I figure that since all my computers have a PS2 port, why not use it?
Anyone have a suggestion for a circa $30.00 or less trackball that 'just works' with everything?
A company called Evoluent http://www.evoluent.com/ has a "Vertical," or "handshake" mouse, that is a hell of a thing. There are pictures on the web page linked above. Anyone at risk for RSI should take a serious look at it. Basically, instead of turning your palm down to the desktop, you leave your hand in the handshake position, the position it is normally in when you are standing relaxed. In addition to the ergonomic shape, it happens to be a fantastic optical mouse. I moved from a regular mouse to a trackball, which was great until I started getting pain in the knuckle of the finger I used to move the ball. I then switched to the handshake designed and used it without problems for years. Actually what I'm using more recently is also noteworthy: the Kinesis Evolution keyboard http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/evol_desk.htm. They keyboard is fully split in half, so you can position it as you like. Plus it has a laptop-like touchpad on both sides of the keyboard. I don't use a conventional mouse anymore: I "mouse with two hands" by usually navigating with my right hand on the right touchpad and clicking the buttons with my left. For me that's meant even less strain than the Evoluent Verticalmouse, which I didn't think was possible!
Some of you already have those cute little shirts on that say disco sucks, right? That's not all that sucks.-Frank Zappa
"The goal of the computer industry is to cut down on periferals and simplify they way we use a computer."
;)
1, No, simplifying the use is actually the job of usability. However a mouse _does_ make the computer more usable.
The keyboard (whether shortcuts or CLI) may sometimes be better when you already are used to that program, and know _exactly_ what you're doing and how. E.g., I myself do prefer, say, the Norton Commander or Midnight Commander pressing F5 to copy a file, compared to dragging and dropping file with the mouse. (And occasionally doing it by mistake or to the wrong folder).
However a large part of usability is discoverability. It's helping you use a program or function that you only use rarely, or the first time, and/or when your time is too valuable to spend months becoming an expert in a program that you'll only need for a few hours total per year.
The mouse is ideal for that. If I just got a new program for the first time, it's easier to just go with the mouse over the toolbar and maybe menus until I find the function I need, than to spend hours reading the manual.
E.g., it was easier hovering a mouse all over the Gimp's toolbox until I found the colour tool I needed, back when I briefly delved into modding (well, mostly recolouring), than to spend some time learning whatever ctrl-alt-shift-footpedal combo it has for that operation. If any. The mouse has, in fact, _saved_ me time there.
2. There are tasks where the keyboard just isn't faster, or even apropriate. I'm not even talking image editing or games. Try navigating the list of links on a site with 100 links per page (e.g., a portal site) only with tab. If you're willing to tell me that you'll be more efficient with your l33t computer skills and just a keyboard, than my just clicking on a link, I'll call bullshit on that. (Don't under-estimate how quickly a twitch-FPS-gamer can snipe that link
3. There are also some tasks where the CLI or keyboard being faster is just a myth. Or rather: just subjective perception.
There have been actual studies about how fast people really are with both. The CLI users invariably thought they were faster. For some tasks, yes, they actually were. But for a whole lot of tasks they weren't.
I've spent some time of my own actually watching some of the l33t unix guru coleagues using just the CLI for everything. (Real Men don't use a gui to configure a server, they edit some 100 XML files in vi, right?) They actually _weren't_ faster. They were in fact a lot slower.
Everything was a several minute long exercise in typing a couple of letters, hitting tab, more letters, tab, tab, more letters, oops, wrong directory, backspace a few times, tab, tab, more typing, oops, error, let's read the man page, more typing and tabs, etc. It really was slower than even a newbie does the same things with a mouse and a good GUI.
But they could swear that they're faster and more productive. How can that be? It boils down to subjective perception. Things that keep your brains busy make your time and your work day seem to go faster. All that typing and hitting tab and checking the options in the man page, it keeps one busy. That's why it's subjectively perceived as faster.
Now there _are_ good cases for a CLI, such as remotely administrating a server or really complex tasks that need one to write a small script. Don't bother pointing those out, I hereby officially acknowledge them as legitimate using. But locally and for mundane operations? Your using only the keyboard may count far less as "excelling in your computer skills" than you think.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Check this out. No idea how "usable" it is, but its certainly not the traditional keyboard/mouse.
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
Or there's the Contour Design "Perfit Mouse", which is definitely not bargain-bin material:
http://www.contourdesign.com/pmo/index.htm
Three buttons across the top, and your thumb is next to a scroll wheel and a rocker switch on the side.
It comes in multiple sizes, including left-handed sizes.
How on earth do you use Firefox with a trackball? There are no "trackball gestures".
But seriously, I haven't used a trackball in years, mainly because I always thought they sucked. They would get "stuck" and wouldn't move. Maybe they have improved them since then. But mice have been great for me. I have a Fellowes gel wristpad for my keyboard and mouse, and the only time I have ever had any wrist pain was when using a keyboard/mouse for a long period of time without them. I don't understand why people don't invest in these things, they are essential.
I have seen people who use trackballs, and it always seems like they are doing more work to get the cursor to move. It seems to me that their thumbs flail around quite a bit. With my mouse, my wrist stays in one place, and I basically move the mouse around with my fingers. The only time I really have to get the mouse going is if I am playing a game or something. I do have to do the "pick up and shuffle" on occasion, but only because I have a dual 20" monitor setup, and moving things from monitor to monitor sometimes takes a little extra effort. But that would be no different with a trackball.
I just found trackballs to be much less precise for my taste.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Retarded? Or just a little clumsy and slow?
I can't believe they still call wired mice gaming mice. How many times have you been strafing and the mouse cord snags... All Gaming mice should be wireless.
I bought the Starck mouse intirgued by the design. His work can be jovial and entertaining, and it can be overdone; I thought the mouse was in the first category.
I used the mouse for 2 months and finally went back to my standard-issue Logitech. This is why:
- The mouse is too light. While this may seem like a silly complaint, it's disorienting to not feel any resistance when you go to move it.
- The buttons are easy to accidentally press just by resting your fingers on the mouse.
- The wheel also lacked the resistance I'm used to.
Some personal aesthetic judgments:
- It's made out of rather flimsy plastic. When I'd grab it to carry it, it felt like an eggshell.
- The cord doesn't seem to be part of the design at all; it belongs on a different mouse.
- The blue light eventually became annoying.
I would not recommend this mouse, but if it works for you, it's probably reliable and I had no optical problems with it.
The Aeron Chair Sucks
Or, spend your money more wisely and buy a decent HON chair. Though your office friends may swear by it, the $700 Aeron chair isn't the last word in chairs.
Plus, it looks so weird that no one dares use my computer anymore when I am gone! Actual quote from someone who came into my cubicle the other day: "What is that thing, a rudder?"
In my experience, all wireless mice have a nasty habit of drifting as if not all motion signals are registered. This makes aiming harder. The mouse feels like it's "understeered". Sort of a reverse acceleration.
Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer v4 is totally unusable for gaming, not only because of it's wildly irregular sampling rate, but also for it's notch-less wheel which makes changing weapons difficult. The last decent mouse Microsoft made was Intellimouse Explorer v3 which is hard to get hold of.
A witty
why oh why do we still use mice keyboards & monitors?
Because nobody has yet figured out how to jack our PC's directly into our brain stems. Until that happens, we'll be using mice and keyboards.
You may as well ask why we're still using pens and pencils. They're tools, they work, they're cheap and they're easy to learn. There's no reason why perfectly good tools should ever become "obsolete" - nobody has yet invented something that writes better than a pencil for a lower price, or that allows you to input things into a computer faster or more accurately than a keyboard and mouse.
let me connect 10 racks of assignable buttons.
This does not sound faster or more intuitive than a keyboard to me.
Let me rotate an object in maya by grabbing one side of it with one hand and moving the other side.
This may well happen someday, but it would not be practical in many office environments where space is at a premium. It would also not be at all accurate (your hand moving through the air will never be steady enough to "rest" on one particular pixel, which is often the accuracy you need when doing something like retouching a photo). Mice or at the very least a drawing tablet (itself based on technology thousands of years old) will always be required for maximum accuracy in situations that require it.
Myself, I still use an IBM Model M keyboard and an IBM Explorer mouse. I don't believe anybody has ever improved upon these as input devices go, and I doubt anybody ever will - hence the drive to make keyboards and mice cheaper, not necessarily better. Going wireless is nice, but not if the keys on your keyboard offer improper levels of resistance and tactile feedback or the mouse is crowded with buttons that can only be pressed by mistake repeatedly. About the only two complaints I have about my setup are the noise from my keyboard, meaning I can only use it at home (I have a cheap junk Dell keyboard at work), and one extra button near my thumb on my mouse that trips me up sometimes. I'd rather have a two-button mouse (with a scroll wheel, which my Explorer has), but my Explorer is shaped so perfectly for my hand and feels both so solid (in terms of construction) and so soft (in terms of materials used) at the same time that it's worth the tradeoff. I've never found a two-button scroll mouse that felt better.
My best mouse is a $6 dollar optical, that I bought from a computer show. :D
I read the article it dosn't say anything about if any are standards complaint (I'll bet the Logitech are). The reason I noticed these thing because if the manufacture follow industry standards it will work with any OS. We all know the MS follows their own standards and in most cases require a special or hacked driver to work with anything other than MS windows.
...got hooked on trackpoint, so at my desktop I use an older IBM Trackpoint II keyboard.
the one I use (FRU# 04K0051) has been replaced w/ 01K1260 (black)
hope that helps...
decnartne ~ entranced
IBM/Lenovo actually make pc keyboards like thatm l
http://www.pc.ibm.com/us/accessories/keyboards.ht
Check out the keyboards with "Ultranav," they have the pointing nipple and touchpad which makes the keyboard kind of big. There are a couple of older models with just the pointing stick but i think you can only find those on ebay now. Search for "trackpoint space saver"
I have used all sorts of human interface devices in the last 10 years of heavy computer use. The MX 1000 is the very best mouse. This, alone with the purchase of a used SteelCase chair with ajustable arms, has giving my wrists a nice rest. But I still want a device that can interface with the computer that uses my feet. Then my hands could stay on the keyboard and I'd get exercise by moving my feet over my cool pad! It would the best thing since Dance Revolution 12!
Say what you will about Microsoft software (G-d knows that I have), but they make a damn fine mouse, and have for many years.
If only the OS division put out as nice a product as the mouse division did...
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I'm perfectly happy with the generic cheap-o $4.99 optical mouse I bought at the local store.
Mike Borella http://www.borella.net/mike
What are some good wireless keyboards? (on both the cheap and pricy side)
Also, I own both the MX1000 and the latest wireless MS Explorer. Like every Logitech product I've owned (a wirless ball mouse, three sets of speakers), this one is defective. No matter what surface I use it on, the mouse jumps around randomly when moved, only by pixels, but enough to for example end up at the wrong shortcut, toolbar icon, or paragraph line when trying to click something. I have yet to call and ask for a replacement, but Logitech has been good about those in the past. Still, I'm really disappointed by this.
Both the MS and Logitech mice side scrolling stinks. It's not integrated with the scrolling up down well at all - on the MS the vertical scrolling of the wheel is totally smooth, which means you can't tell when you've scrolled one tic with the mouse, but you get random jerks on your screen. Logitech has the usual really senstive vertical scroll which makes it real easy to scroll without intent. Again the side scrolling is as a result painful, since you always do something else accidentally. Neither side scrolling feature works without the native mouse software.
Logitech, as always, has the mose godawful software. I don't even use their software and just forgo the extra task switching button on the mouse. Another complaint is actually the physical design. The indent for your thumb button is far too deep. If you hold the mouse with it, your thumb ends up paracticly under your forefinger, and the whole thing is just a little too round, so you end up feeling like you're holding half a baseball with a dent in its side. I find myself keeping my thumb on the small edge that outlines the base's left side just to keep the mouse moving precisely how I want it. It's just more intuitive than the grib they had in mind.
The greatest thing about Logitech's MX1000 is that it's rechargable and wireless with seemingly decent range. While the MS Explorer's battery life is pretty long, it occassionally (once or twice a week) gives me trouble finding the base station (starts being randomly unresposnive, so I click the reset button and move the base station an inch, then 5 seconds later it's ok again). Then again, I don't follow the 12 inch or however long radius rule of keeping no electronics next to the base station for either mouse - pretty stupid rule to have for a desktop computer. My base station sits on a printer, on top of a dvd player, on top of a sub, next to a tv, about a foot away from a surge protector.
My ideal mouse would be an MS Explorer physical design, software, and buttons, with a tougher mousewheel not present on either mouse, and with Logitech's wireless range and rechargability. I have noticed no difference in precision between the optical and laser mechanisms, other than MX1000's seems defective on my particular model.
I have no clue what this specification means. It looks more like the spec. for an ultra high performance video camera.
I've been using them for years. I can't use a regular mouse at all -- they just drive me nuts.
To people who don't know what Perific of Logitech mean, this could be read as an entirely perverted post.
Algernon
This may be related.
My deaf roommate told me that deaf people rarely get RSI from signing, while signing interpreters often do.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
All the keyboards I've ever used have some limitation on how many keys can be pressed at once. It's usually two or three, and depends on exactly which keys you are pressing. This is extremely annoying when trying to do some complicated move in a game which requires several keys to be pressed, only to find it doesn't work, and BLAM I'm dead.
Are there any keyboards which don't have this problem?
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
--Aristotle
Wow, a clit mouse?
When I had one of those on my Toshiba laptop and went away for a week, I would have a sore index finger after 3 hours. Then I'd use my middle finger, it would get me through the rest of the day.
The 2nd day I would have 2 sore fingers, and start using my ring finger. Then I was screwed, and started resorting to keyboard shortcuts.
Not to mention, a large portion of the time I went for the G or H key, I would get checked by the clit.
Those things suck. For a laptop, a trackpad is a helluva lot nicer. The PowerBook's with the 2-finger scroll stuff now is pretty nice. But for wired use, the MX-1000 is outstanding.
Bah. Wake me when they start putting middle mouse buttons back on. I mean real buttons, not a flicky useless scroll wheel you can push.
:-(
There's a lot of apps that make great use of the middle button, and X-pasting is another godsent feature. Buying a new mouse is so unbelievable hard if you grew up being used to having three buttons on your rodent.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I believe that with the intellimouse software you can disable the extra buttons, if you so choose.
...so long as it doesn't try and take my brain on its search for the meaning of life.
I wanted to know the actual stats of the sensors used but couldn't find a site with technical info. So I made one.
If you have a mouse not listed, I'd appreciate info and/or pictures.
Also, if you use a Logitech mouse and/or keyboard that uses the SetPoint driver, unlock loads of features with my UberOptions mod for SetPoint.
-Richard
-Richard L. Owens
Translation: Our guys don't know how to set up and use a CLI, so I'll use anecdotal evidence to smack CLI's around a bit.
I don't suppose they would have reviewed the companies for driver updates. My logitech mouse and keyboard BOTH have driver and software issues that will not be resolved or updated in the future. However, I can go look at the logitech support system and search for answers, or use a menu to select my product and search for that instead. Either way, Logitech seems a dying company if they don't support their USB products with new drivers.
The IBM scrollpoint optical mouse (24P0495) is the ultimate. It has three buttons for proper X navigation, a two axis scroller that doesn't require you to lift and replace your finger all the time, and optical tracker goodness to save you from performance degradation.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
What's the best mouse for playing GTA III?
Huh? I found that in maybe two seconds.
I'll second the recommendation, though. I have two of 'em at work. Clicky is good.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
- Optical (possibly laser, but not necessary)
- Trackball replaces wheel for scrolling in any direction
- Wireless
- Charging socket on the front of the mouse so it can be used like a corded mouse while charging (I hate docking stations)
- Ambidextrous
- Side buttons must be staggered on either side so that applying force to press one button does not mean you squeeze the other button down by accident.
- Lifting the mouse off a surface even a small distance disables the eye, meaning that the cursor does not jump around.
- No dumb software required
- Not designed by anybody famous
This mouse does not exist. I wish it did.I am not a "power gamer" (I have too many other ways to spend my precious evenings and weekends), so I probably have different needs than the author, but the one thing I can say for sure is that you can not tell someone else which mouse works best for them. Sure, you can give some basic advice, such as:
1) Optical mice are better because there is no ball to gum up.
2) Wheel mice are really nice.
3) If the mouse is too light, the cord tends to move the mouse when you are not otherwise touching it.
HOWEVER, the bottom line is that you need to try them out for comfort. My wife's hands are smaller than mine, so she prefers a smaller mouse. I ocassionally move my mouse to the other side of the keyboard, so symmetry is a big deal to me.
The only way to tell is to go to a store that has mice on a shelf and try them out.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Fight night 2 - No more total control punching.
Amped 2 - No more pushing a direction and holding a grab.
Moto gp2 - no more incrimental throttle (though of coarse thats easily fixed with a trigger key)
But in reality these are exceptions and i think a trackball would have been a great addition to the consol joystick. The most missed would be fight night, as that is pretty much the best use of the right thumb stick i've ever seen (besides fps games).
What i'd like to see though are more buttons on mice. The most you can find are 2 extra buttons. Why not cram on more there? I can't think of a single game that uses the mouse where you wouldnt want more buttons on the mice to be able to use.
I hope someone comes up with some new design ideas for gaming and control. As it stands now we have push buttons with left hand and steer with right for the pc, and visa versa for consols. There has to be some happy middle ground where your hand can natrually rest on every input you need without having ot move it around too much.
As per most other hardware advancements, gaming has really defined the quality bar by being the most demanding application.
I was recently given a Microsoft Wireless IntelliMouse Explorer 2.0 and a Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 4.0 to compare. They are basically the same mouse but one is wireless and one is corded. I tried both with Unreal Tournament 2003, and there's still of course a huge difference between corded and wireless. The wireless mouse is laggy and significantly less responsive than the corded one. It's so bad that it makes FPS games basically unplayable.
No wireless mouse will ever be able to match the responsiveness and precision of a corded mouse, so the simple fact that this "review" ranks a wireless mouse as the top choice just shows how worthless this review actually is. Even if 90% of your mouse usage is on standard desktop/GUI activities, and you only rarely fire up a game to play, you will still be far better off with a good corded mouse.
Furthermore, durability and drivers are two issues largely overlooked by this review. If you go to the Logitech support forums you can find tons of users who have problems with the MX510 and MX518's buttons failing. It appears to be a design defect. And you can find tons of frustrated MX518 users who are suffering from major bugs in the SetPoint drivers or who are unable to get drivers for their platform (the MX518 drivers are only available for WinXP). By comparison, the Microsoft IntelliPoint software isn't very feature-rich for gaming purposes, but it's totally stable and is available for nearly every Microsoft mouse on every windows version.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
Here is one vendor who claims to still have some of them for sale. I suppose you might be able to find one used somewhere too; good luck.
"No, translation: yes, a lot of those self-proclaimed "gurus" and CLI-zealots aren't that good with it. In fact, they're outright worse than a newbie with a GUI. And there are a lot of those around: all arrogance and self-promotion, and little actual results to show for that self-proclaimed expertise."
You need to set up a CLI, and train properly in order to get maximium benefit from a CLI.
"As for anecdotal or non-anecdotal, the studies are real, and were done by Apple. Now if you're telling me that even a corporation like Apple, back in the day where they were a dominant player, couldn't find someone who can use the CLI right, it seems to me like you've just made my point."
The very same company that until recently held that "one button" mice were all you need.
You ask if a peripheral like the IBM pointing stick is marketed, the answer is yes. They come in pairs are available at "gentleman's clubs" all over the world.
I think alot of reviews miss out on this, and to me, it's important. I've used quite a few mice in my time (I have... three attached to my desktop atm: Gyromouse for laying back, MX900 for general use, and a Razer Viper for playing games), one of the things that really matters in the feel of a mouse (especially in games and more so than wireles lag imo) is the LED placement. The MX1000 puts the LED (well, laser) right in the center of your palm. So, say I want to move my cursor to the left. How I'd normally do it is tilt the mouse ever so slightly (I have sensitivity set very high and tend to move my mouse with my fingers). My arm doesn't actually move. You can't do that well when the LED is in the center of your palm. You have to move the whole mouse and gernerally your arm. The MX1000 is shaped in such a way that it discourages moving the mouse with your fingers as well.
With the Razer Viper, the LED is placed a little forward from the middle of your palm more near the base of your fingers. This enables your to move the cursor with less movement of the mouse, which I prefer. The shape of the mouse also helps. It's not shaped to be gripped like a handle. It's a pretty passive shape that allows me to hold the mouse with my fingers and the LED is placed nearer to my finger tips. I prefer the Razers to most Logitech mice for those reasons. In games at least, as I haven't tried the Diamondback. I use the MX900 for web browsing more basically due to the extra buttons.
Small, but with a nice heft for its size. It doesn't have too easy a click (like those awful Dell and Apple mice), it has a nice solid construction, it is optical so my fingernails stay clean, and it has a cord so no computer-side dongle to lose.
And swanky, but not too bright, colors.
Of course they discontinued it. Which means you can get them for less! I got one for my wife so she'd stop 'borrowing' mine.
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/downloads/softw
There's no doubt that Razer makes the best mice. The MX518 is too heavy/bulky to utilise the 1600 dpi sensor and the reviewer failed to note that. Also, there's a reason why almost HALF of all the top pro gamers use Razers.
Heh and the Plasma is goddamn cool www.razerzone.com
As someone who's used both a MX1000 and MX510 extensively in gaming, including sniping in Counter-Strike or whatever as you state, I can assure you there's no latency or problems with the MX1000 as far as gaming goes. Try it before you slam it. You call people who use a product you've never even tried stupid? Based on what, wild ass assumptions? That's not very logical. Every review of the MX1000 out there states they're great for gaming. And they are. I use a cheap mouse at work; there's a world of difference in ergonomics, precision, and tracking between the MX1000 and it. Latency isn't a factor. Period.
Just be careful if you buy a MX1000. There seems to be a problem with the receiver unit that makes mouse cursor jump down once in a minute or so. I returned my MX1000 to the shop and bought Razer Diamondback instead and I've been more than happy with it.
I didn't even known about Razer before I returned MX1000, but luckily the shop had internet connection and after few reviews I decided to try it. So, maybe I should thank Logitech for making that faulty piece and forcing me to try something else.
Remember this new MX series from Logiteck is right-hand only! This is bad as you know. After checking out different mice available for about 5 hours I bought Logitech MediaPlay and I can tell this is probably the most geeky mouse out there. This mouse is left+right friendly, has 10ft wireless range and you can hold like a remote control for your computer playing Rhapsody or Yahoo Music Engine. Above all it has 8 buttons. Beat that!
They're obviously the top mice on the (ex-)planet, no?
The revolution will NOT be televised.
There is *no* delay in that. Maybe there is in some cordless mice-- I don't know. I've only used the MX1000. It sounds like you're taking the behavior of one mouse, and applying it to the MX1000 without having used it. I'm not trying to be a Logitech fanboi here, but damn people, at least use the thing before you put it down.
Don't get me wrong. I like getting accumulated too, but I think the author and editor should wait until after they post before they start at it.
"This mission is too important to allow you to jeopardize it." -- HAL
I used to work as the 'hardware standards' person for a large UK financial company. Basically I evaluated hardware to make standard for the company. I decided which servers, desktops, laptops, printers and peripherals etc. the company would standardise to leverage our buying power. So for example we used:
Proliant wintel servers
Deskpro desktops
Thinkpad laptops
Canon MFD printers
etc.
I had a requirement to update our pointing devices so I needed to cater for 8000 users, including users with various disabilities, left handers etc. I called up Logitec and asked them to submit various devices for test, I gave them our requirements. They said we don't do left handed mice. I pointed out that they would sell a lot to us, they said "We don't do left handed mice. End Of Story."
So bollocks to them, if they can't make a left handed mouse, they can't make a good mouse.
I got a couple of Belkin 3-button optical mice from Dell a few months ago, and I'm very happy with them. They're nice, fairly inexpensive, and don't gum up like ball mice. I'm leary of Belkin products in general, but I haven't had any problems with these. I have more information at http://k-lug.org/~griswold/mouse.html.
Gracias
Every bloody time someone makes a new cordless mouse, especially Logitech, wouldn't you know it, the invariable claim is that it has no power-up delay. I keep reading that since the year _2000_ or so. When the MX700 came out, you guessed, the exact same hype was all over the sites. Nosiree bob, it has no noticeable delay, it's perfect for gaming.
And invariably the usual conspicuous consumption crowd was swearing they see the emperor's fine new clothes.
And nosiree bob, it wasn't true. I've actually tried it, brought it back and brought one with a cord. The delay wasn't huge, but it was long enough so the same twitch of the hand didn't move exactly as many pixels in the game. If you play by reflex, rather than by working at lining up pixels, there is no way to not notice the difference.
So I hope you'll excuse me if, after trying literally a _dozen_ cordless mice (yes, I have a box of mice by now), I'm a tad skeptical by default. I've heard that before, it never was true. Who knows, maybe the MX1000 finally has micro-second power-up times or something, but I've been scammed before.
You also don't address the main point of my "Stupid Fashion Victim" claim, the "IT'S LASER!!!" hype. _That_ is the bullshit buzzword that annoys me the most.
As I've said, there is _no_ difference coherent light will make in a _mouse_. It's a small camera, the LED is just light for that camera. There is no bloody way using laser as a light will make the camera higher resolution, or you'd have a laser as a flash in all digital cameras so far.
It's just a buzzword so Logitech can charge twice as much for it. No more, no less.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Wow, this article must be the one where everyone and their grandmother has something to say. I know my late post is going to get buried in the numbers, but I'll post anyway...
:-(
u se
I use a corded optical mouse, the MX 310 from Logitech. It works well and the cordedness means great response and no battery charging hassles. Also corded mice tend to be much cheaper. I program and use all of the six buttons for the mac: left click, right click, shift click, command click, option click, and exposé keystroke. Five of them are really helpful, and I wouldn't want to go back to a mouse with less than five. Having said that, the pad on the bottom of the mouse is beginning to wear out
On a separate topic, here's an idea for future mice that combines the best of corded and cordless worlds:
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Cord-optional_20Mo
...where one of the cons listed for the Microsoft mouse is "inferior mouse". I mean, "Cons" in this context means "List of reasons why this is an inferior mouse". It's totally redundant!
qntm.org
You've never used a MX1000, and you bash it because you didn't like the MX700, and call anyone who bought one stupid? Yeah, ok. Try actually using it before you start inventing theories on how it performs.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =5194219673
:)
i bought 4 of them so I never have to worry about not being able to play FPS and 3rd person shooters again
try a 3.0 intellimouse explorer.
the optical sensor is MUCH better, and very accurate in games etc.
thats the wired one, can't vouch for the wireless 3.0...
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
I personally have not used it, but how about the Endura Pro from pckeyboard.com? I believe they are also the holders of the IBM Model M patent - clicky feel *and* and the ergo pointer stick! w00t!
"Ad infinitem et ultra!" - Buzz Lightyear
From the headline I thought that scientists were now genetically modifying mice for competition. Mouse deathmatch!
There are a couple things to consider:
:)
- You do not want to have to open up the controller to clean it. Losing the ball, choking hazards, breakage of the opening circle after months of heravy use, choking hazard for little brothers, etc.
- Do you use an optical or mechanical trackball? (optical like the old trackman). Are opticals patent-encumbered and would sony want to get into that?
- How do trackballs interact with motion feedback? (dualshock's vibration)
- Can you make a trackball you can click down like the dualshock's sticks?
- What do you do about backward compatibility? (important on both upcoming consoles)
But yeah, I'd love to see a clickable optical right trackball in the PS3's controller. There are just so many things that would feel better with a trackball that it isn't funny.
And of course, you'd have to bundle a new version of millipede
I love the trackpoint on my laptop (aka "the nipple"). I find it more precise than a trackball -- prolly due simply to more practice with it -- and my wrist doesn't move.
But Maaa! Everyone else has a
Well, I can see how my post was worded a bit weird ... I was trying to find a picture of one of those sleek T40-type keyboards, not the 10-pound indestructible old-school ones. :o)
P roductDisplay?catalogId=-840&langId=-1&partNumber= 31P8950&storeId=10000001
This was what I was not able to find an image for:
http://www-131.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/
"Good news, everyone!"
at least he ain't a biggot
I hate it when they review wireless mice (or include wireless mice in review). They always forget to include BlueTooth mice. I have used the optical mice, IR mice, top rated mice. But whenever it's IR, if the receiver and your mouse are not pointed the right way, it just doesn't work!
I was blown away by the BT mouse that I got. It was small, but accuracy was great! Mind you that my requirements are low, but compared to the IR stuff, it was just night and day. Response time was great, IR tended to lag when you let it rest for a bit, not so with bt. Also, I use it to control the PC attached to the TV sitting 15ft away from me, NOT possible with typical IR mouse. It's gotten an off button to boot, so I don't have to marry it to the cradle which is constantly draining power
They existed. I know they did. I just can't find them anymore.
I use photoshop and have for years. I'm extremely adept at using the mouse to draw. What I need is a mouse that will let me vary my line strength in photoshop in the same way that a tablet would.
They did exist, but I can't find them anymore.
Anyone?
I have 3 different IBM pointing stick-keyboards. I've been using them since '97. I use mine in conjunction with a regular mouse (for precision drawing, etc.) You will never go back to a regular keyboard or mouse. They are easier and faster than a mouse alone. IMHO, integrated touch-pads (e.g. Apple's laptops) are inferior.
and clicking. Its easy to understand. A trackball on the other hand, is like spinning to stay in place. Hand rolls, cursor moves, Trackball holder is motionless. Hello! Its the intuitive metaphor that takes some getting used to, though theres nothing wrong with it as such. I had a similar problem with my Wacom Pen tablet - it was hard to adjust and actually use it daily but when RSi forced me to, it was just so amazing!