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The Best Computer Mice In Every Category
ThinSkin writes "Now that the folks at ExtremeTech have finished writing about the best keyboards for every occasion, they conclude their roundup of input devices with the best computer mice in every category, which includes ergonomic mice, gaming mice, notebook mice, and so on. While this year's crop of gaming mice didn't impress much, there were advancements in non-gaming mice and tracking, as demonstrated by Microsoft's Explorer Mouse with BlueTrack technology — which is considered more precise than optical and laser. Even ergonomic mice saw little growth in the year — prompting the reviewer to rely on the older Zero Tension Mouse as a favorite."
Bitter much?
I don't care what category it is - best mice are: Logitech MX518, Logitech G5 (1st edition has a less annoying texture, 2nd edition has 2 side buttons, but no perfect edition like MX518), and G7 (wireless G5 basically).
WHO NEEDS SHIFT WHEN YOU HAVE CAPSLOCK/ DAMN1
My best laptop mouse is the built in touchpad.
I usually sit leaned back in my office chair with my laptop on my lap and a mouse is a waste for me.
A touchpad is also more intuitive to me, the best option that gives me all the advantages of a touchscreen and a mouse.
And those ultra tiny portable mice drive me up the walls, and besides I spend most of my day writing mails and tooling through logs on the command line... no mouse needed for vi, grep or tail thanks a lot.
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
Hey, TypoNAM:
CmdrTaco apparently hasn't given up yet.
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from the bet-they-have-power-in-the-upper-penninsula dept.
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/mice_pointers/trackballs/devices/166&cl=US,EN
This thing is fantastic -- imagine not having to move your arm and wrist in order to move the cursor. I'm kind of surprised that I haven't seen more people using them, although they do take a couple of days to get used to. However, once you're accustomed to it there is no going back.
For all of us who buy in the bargain bins of your favorite computer retailer.
Which mouse under $10 is the best mouse?
Which mouse under $20 is the best mouse?
Which mouse under $30 is the best mouse?
This is what most of us who are cheapskates really want to know.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Microsoft's Explorer Mouse with BlueTrack technology--which is considered more precise than optical and laser.
If you don't actually know whether it is more precise (and I guess if you did know then you would have come straight out and said it) then at least give us some clues as to WHO it is who "considers" it to be more precise. The people selling them? An independent study? Some guy you met on the bus? Without that rather fundamental detail, the statement is completely worthless.
I like the touchpads, but only if the drivers allow a "delay while typing" setting. Otherwise, my thumbs inevitably tap the touch pad while half way through an email, deleting half, or sending half... :(
I have a Fujitsu tablet now, which has a trackpoint/touch stick. That works fine once calibrated, and saves some space which allows for a bigger keyboard with a smaller screen.
no comment
It's amusing that these guys seem to count slick mouse software as a plus. I bet most of us would rather have a mouse that doesn't need any additional software. Wireless devices don't make any sense to me either, unless you're talking about a media PC. Isn't a mouse/KB that can run out of batteries just additional complication with no benefit? And isn't a charging pad a waste of desk space?
I disagree in that I like the precision of my mouse. I've used pointing sticks before, and I prefer a trackpad if I'm going mouse-less. However, if I've got the room for it I'll take a mouse every time.
The biggest problem with articles like this is that there's a very wide range of tastes when it comes to input devices. I prefer a simple, wide and long mouse for my uses. If given the choice between the linked mouse and a wireless, decked out, beautiful logitech laser mouse that costs hundreds of dollars, I'd take the simple one every time.
Coordless offer a pleasant versatility in particular when you work with someone else on the same computer or if you use a laptop. I use a cordless one for my laptop and I really don't miss those annoying cables. But cord mice are usually lighter than cordless which need they battery included. Because of this weight difference I prefer good old cordful mice for pure desktop machine.
Additional but lesser arguments again using cord everywhere are than you need to pay the additional circuit plus to recharge and recycle additional battery.
Back in 1999 or so I used to absolutely slay in Tribes 1 on an old ThinkPad with a TrackPoint. Oddly, I couldn't play at all with a regular mouse.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo!
I still have a functioning CH Products trackball at home. Still works after 15+ YEARS as a tool. Sure, I had to open it up and clean it inside a couple of times, but I have to do that more often with mice at work, so that shouldn't matter. I also had to get a PS/2 to USB convertor for the one I have (cheaper then buying a new trackball).
Hey, can you recommend a good text editor for that OS?
Sadly, that wasn't the best driver software out there. Many moons ago, I remember the Logitech mouse drivers let you use the scroll wheel WITHOUT having to click to focus on the window to scroll. You just moved your mouse to the zone even if it wasn't in focus. Sadly, I can't find that nowadays.
It was very buggy, so they removed it.
Try KatMouse: http://ehiti.de/katmouse/
I will NOT condemn a USB port just to communicate with some mouse's non-standard RF when my PC already has a usable means of communicating with my mouse.
Then get a hub. As I understand it, Bluetooth mice cost more because Bluetooth is patented with a nonzero royalty.
The whole concept of a mouse driven GUI has lost its appeal and significance over time. The touch screen, meaning the ability for users to interact directly with a display and objects embedded within that display, is the next technological leap. Many such devices exist now, we see the intelligent sensitivity of the classic iPhone and other PDA's were no stylus is involved. It's just the desktop computer and high definition screens need to evolve and be priced accordingly so it becomes commonplace.
After Finger 10.5 we might see screens picking up retinal and eyeball movement, hand motions and gestures without gloves, wires or hookups of any type that allows a user to interact with their desktop displays much like the primitive but highly popular Wii interface allows right now.
The future looks bright for dynamic, kinetic based desktop GUIs. And some of us older folks might see our beloved mice behind the glass at the Smithsonian along with all the other deprecated computer interfaces that lived and died over a whirlwind of fast moving generations.
Do other lefties feel a bit left out? Only two of the mice listed were symmetrical. As a left-handed PC gamer, it seems impossible for me to find a high-quality mouse that comfortably fits my hand. Especially mice with 5+ buttons.
This problem is often exacerbated by games like Fallout 3, in which bethesda felt the need to perma-bind numpad 7 (strafe left for us southpaws) to the 'Stop the game and open windows live' command. Is there no money in making a mirror version for those of us with a recessive gene or two?
Who spends $80 to $100 on a mouse? Is there honestly that much "value" going into it, regardless how fancy it is? I'm calling bullshit. Geeks need to reign in their enthusiasm and just say "no" once in while to ridiculous pricing; greedy pricing only works if we're stupid enough to agree to it.
I don't know about you, but I sit at a computer 8 to 12 hours a day, and my mouse is in my hand a lot of that time. It arguably makes more sense for me to choose wisely and spend the money (where it makes sense) on a mouse than on a cell phone, which I probably use about 30 minutes a day. But I don't see anyone complaining that $80-100 is overpriced for a cell phone.
I've had a logitech wireless from a long time ago, mx700 i think. It's great, but for one thing; it must be put in its dock to recharge. I prefer this to using regular rechargeables as it is actually kind of convenient, but why is it necessary? That is, why can't there just be a wire that I plug into the mouse just where a normal wired mouse's wire would go. Then I could keep using it while it recharged. As it is I have had to have an extra wired mouse connected to my computer for the few times when I need to keep working when the wireless one is low on charge. So, tell me, why can't somebody do this?
The expense is not particularly in the capital outlay, but in the logistics of ensuring that you always have fuel laid in, and that your system is always ready to go at a suitably short notice.
At work, we have to have a separate emergency power system, housed in the opposite corner of the vessel to the main engines, on a separate fuel system, and hooked up to the distribution boards to re-power the vessel's communications, accommodation lighting, control room and certain critical subsystems (principally, the derrick's electrical braking system, and the fuel pump to the cement unit, the hydraulics for the anchoring and/ or DP system), but most importantly it also powers the back-up fire pump. (This is, naturally, housed distant to the main fire pump ; what would you do if you had a fire in the engineering space that housed the main fire pump? Die?) All of which adds considerably to the overall complexity of the system. We normally do a test run of the emergency generator system along with personnel muster drill, abandon vessel drills etc about once a week ; these system are utterly useless if their use is not routinely drilled until every person using the system knows that the system works, and what their roles in the system are.
Oh, am I making it sound a bit more complex than you'd wanted? well, that's the difference between playing at having a backup system and really having a backup system.
(Minor sideline : Like everyone else, I'm not best pleased when the alarms go for emergency drills in the middle of my sleep period. But I accept it as necessary, and routinely object to the scheduling of drills at fixed times in the calendar ; I think that they should be at random times, or at routine times plus as many random times. This makes me unpopular. So what?)
Your generator needs a fuel supply always laid-in sufficient for your anticipated outage ; you need to know where you're going to get additional fuel, and how long that is going to take ; you need to know how you're going to transfer fuel from your bowser (transfer container) to the generator's fuel system without the generator running (and hence, no electrical power ; or, do you select generator hardware which can be re-fuelled while running? P.P.P.P.P.P! [Loath though I am to cite the Torygraph, they come to the top of the list).
What to do about the exhaust fumes is left as an exercise for the student. Will you have power available for a ventilation blower? And have you double-checked on the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning? Static engines are very different beasts to the mobile engines that you're more likely to be familiar with.
Your wood-burning stove raises fewer issues. But elsewhere on today's Slashdot is a thread about someone who was off-power for 4 days, so do you have stacking space for (say) a week of wood? Fire-starting equipment? Really, fire-starting equipment that you can use in the dark. Oh, you forgot to put the candles in the same drawer as the matches? And the matches are wet. Aren't you glad that you practiced this in early autumn?
People have got lost navigating back from the woodshed to the main house. It may sound surprising, but it does happen.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Well, I don't live on a ship, but I do live on the largest commercial farm in this whole area (it's not mine but I am the oldest employee here). We have automatic start and run large diesel generators to operate the farm itself, three of them needed. Those are computer controlled and have redundant wireless and hard wired controls that coordinate that with the climate control systems in the various buildings and broiler houses and the main feed from the electrical grid. They have their own bulk tanks and the farm itself has a separate diesel bulk tank in the thousands of gallons size for all our equipment, which runs from the smallest diesel tractor at 24 horse up to multiple crawlers at over 100 tons apiece, and large trackhoes and pans, etc. We have three 60,000 gallon propane tanks for the heat, and all the residences have 500 gallon tanks. I am the only residence with an additional woodstove though, and I put up around 4 cords a year. I grew up up north but live in georgia now, we don't get those "lost in the blizzards" type of snow, but I sure have seen it before. I also have two smaller gas generators myself and a small solar array with battery bank and an additional windcharger. Oh, we also have a decent enough airport here on the property with full hangar space enough for a couple dozen planes and maintenance/machine shop facilities, roughly equivalent to a normal small size county airport, albeit it is only a grass strip, no jets, but it takes twin engine planes fine.
I was just commenting on Taco's remorse at having to sit in the cold with no juice, that's all, because there's no need for that really, not today with so many options out there, enough to fit most any reasonable budget. Waiting for the crisis to hit and *then* thinking about it (especially in Mich with lake effect snow and ice storms being so very common) doesn't work, you have to build out your redundant infrastructure in advance of an emergency.
My reply was more responding to the relative cheapness of having something for people to use for when their main supplies of energy got disrupted, and noting that in the tech geek community that data backups are a good idea and accepted, but it falls off fast for additional types of backup, but I was encouraged on the followup thread considerable with all the interest and the people who had gone that route of eneregy backups.. You can get a nice automatic start exterior permanent mounted propane generator for under two thousand dollars now and maybe 500 bucks to have it professionally installed to comply with codes and safety, etc, at the 7kw level, which is good enough to run the basic stuff people need, although perhaps not everything, but "enough". I'd say something like that is affordable for most folks in the "middle class" range if they own their own homwe anyway (or a natural gas model, although I prefer propane, it stores well onsite and isn't reliant on exterior delivery as much as natgas is) and even a smaller portable gasoline unit at well under $1,000 is still good enough to work, as evidenced by all the anecdotal in the follow up post he did asking about home generators and so on.
As to doing without and so on, I did a stretch of over five years in my young man days living totally feral way the heck back in the moose and bears woods with no electricity or anything of that sort (I had one flashlight and one battery operated radio to be fair about that), grew/harvested most or all of my own food as well, etc. I'm a bit more comfortable now but we still grow over half our food here (veggies, fruits, our own grassfed beef and my personal flock of chickens and ducks)
I've been into survivalism/preparedness for a long time now, mostly since I went through a big blizzard in 67 that closed everything down for two weeks. 48 inches in 24 hours then drifts, right over the top of our two story home. It was medium big, hehe. (I still have some super 8 movies of it, including getting shots of an *arctic owl* that showed up in the backyard, that was cool..). It mad