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Sunday 4 December 2005

Where have all the good mice gone?

On almost every PC I use, I still have a nice reliable ball mouse, usually wireless, and every few months, it get's a small clean and new batteries. But one of them is now at least 4 years old, and is showing it's age a little, so off I went hunting for a replacement.

To my horror, nobody is selling mice with balls these days (male mice are extinct!!! - female only versions available?). They only sell the optical crap. I've tried optical mouses quite a few times, you always get really bad feedback and the mouse behaviour is eratic at best of times. I usually end up bining them. But I'm still in shock today, that it's so increadibly difficult to buy them. So if you know of any good on-line resellers who sell real mice.. let me know..

On a side line to this, I ended up with a dud piece of hardware from Targus (Note Mac unfriendly supplier!) - their cute looking wireless presenter mouse, has no drivers for OSX, so looks like that one's going back to the shop.. (even linux had support for this!)
[update] I took the Wireless presenter mouse (Targus ARM01AP) back to the shop, after a bit of wiggling by the sales assistant, and pressing buttons on the USB bit, suddly it came to life on the OSX desktop, so after spending 2hours+ trying to find a solution last night, minutes after I plugged it in today, it worked out the box, without any extra software...agghhhh

Posted by alan in at 10:30:15

Possible solution ? who knows ...
Makes me wonder what on earth you are doing to your mices if you don't find a single optical mouse that can fulfill your needs :)

I for one at least got tried of cleaning out that wheels and the ball years ago, yes I know, clean env means no cleaning and all that but well if you'd see where I work then you'd switch to optical also :P

Anyway the mouse that has treated me just fine is Logitech MX510 and many people I know praise it, even the most hardcore gamers (and to be fair, most of those guys do the oddest things with the mices, throw them around and all that)

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/IS/EN,CRID=2142,CONTENTID=7982
Kinda many buttons but well so it goes, they can be useful at times tho.

But since you like coredless then go look at http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/productlist/IS/EN,crid=2134,categoryid=413

and find these 3, I've heard nice things about them:
- Logitech® LX7 Cordless Optical Mouse
- Logitech® G7 Laser Cordless Mouse
- Logitech® MX™1000 Laser Cordless Mouse

the G7 might be the thing for you, it has the highest res, MX510 having 800 dpi vs 2000 from the G7

But I look forward to what you pick, always good to know of extra nifty products =)

#1 - Helgi Þormar ( Link) on 04 Dec 2005, 11:06 Delete Comment

Razer, all the way
Am typing this having clicked here via a stunning Razer Diamondback Blue Crystal mouse, on an eXactMat X Control, plugged into my Mac. This is the smoothest mouse you'll find, but also the most sensitive, designed for hardcore FPS gamers, it is pixel perfect, very comfortable and..err.. has a price tag to match this elite status ;)

Tried the Logitechs, hated them, too 'fat'. Hated the Microsoft 'leather feel' Intellimouse even more.

#3 - Richard Davey ( Link) on 04 Dec 2005, 12:02 Delete Comment

Stay away from Wireless
After I retired my last male mouse, I got a wireless logitech optical. Terrible thing. The powersaving mode would make it terribly unresponsive, plus it used up batteries like crazy, even though it had a charging dock.

I chucked it after a month, and went back to cables. I agree with the sometime erratic behaviour of optical mice, but I'm a keyboard guy... so the fact that I don't need a mousepad, and don't need to clean it makes up for it.

#4 - Aaron ( Link) on 04 Dec 2005, 19:03 Delete Comment

Mouse Has to Be Optical
For starters, old ball mice don't last. They collect dirt and finally you can't fix them despite how much you try to clean them.

Secondly, optical mouse is very accurate. If you have problems with it, check your mouse pad. The pad has to be dark. (If you use light mouse pad, the cursor will jump on the screen.)

Finally, I don't either like the wireless versions. The battery always wears out, which is not nice at all. Also, I guess those would require special drivers. (I'd like the mouse to work even with trim down computers, like specialized linux servers...) And why would you use wireless mouse with non-wireless PC (well, sometimes that is usefull, but not usually).

#5 - Jarkko ( Link) on 05 Dec 2005, 16:39 Delete Comment