Logitech Mouse Review
After reading poke's view of the new Logitech mouse, I ran down to CompUSA to give it a whirl. Overall, it was a bit of a disappointment. The mouse acts almost identical to the Microsoft mouse. It has the exact same flicking problems in all versions of Windows as the Microsoft optical mice, even with the Logitech software installed. It may not be as apparent because the Logitech software ramps up the default sensitivity. However, I run multimon at 1600x1200 on both monitors, and could still get the mouse to exhibit the problem in Windows with the same amount of effort as with my Microsoft optical mouse (which I had plugged in at the same time). Plus, the light turned on and off in the exact same manner as the Microsoft one and the USB to PS/2 adapter was the exact same light green one. I emailed Logitech's media relations department about this similarity and got this response:
We were the first company to use optical technology. This technology was found in our early trackballs. The technology we use today in our optical mice is from a third party. As you may have already noticed, the biggest difference between Logitech's and Microsoft's mice is in the software.So it seems fairly obvious from this email that Microsoft and Logitech use the same hardware for their optical mice. For those of you unfamiliar with the flicking problem, when you move these mice quickly across a surface, the optical technology messes up and makes a "Z" in Windows. In Quake, this can happen fairly often, and causes your view to wig out when you don't expect it. A lot of the time you end up facing straight up or straight down. This mouse has other upsides and downsides. The upsides of this mouse are the same as the Microsoft one - very accurate and very easy to move around. Additionally, the mouse is symmetrical. This means that left handed people can use it exactly as well as right handed people. Microsoft has one of these as well, and I'm sure Logitech will release a MouseMan that's right-handed only similar to their other mice. The mouse I bought is a little smaller than the Microsoft one, but I have big mutant hands so it may not be too much of an issue for people. Oh, and one thing to keep in mind about these optical mice - They're touted as having no moving parts. Well, this would be true if not for the wheel and buttons. These are very much moving parts, and I actually had a Microsoft mouse where one of the buttons eventually started getting stuck down and the wheel started skipping and moving twice every so often. Just a word of warning. So getting this mouse is a judgement call. There are no real technological advantages to this mouse, so if you want optical technology, head down to a store and see which one feels better in your hand - Microsoft or Logitech. Then buy that one. update Jack - I've updated the review a bit to reflect the fact that Microsoft too has a righty-lefty mouse, as told to me in the comments, where people are having a discussion over a bunch of different mice.
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krazy_ivan
replyya, the optical is nice, but i perfer the button-less mouse apple is making, no buttons makes the mouse so much easier to use....
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I'm guessing you don't have any fingers. Seriously, these fancy push-button mice don't really require a whole lot of brain usage :\
That wheel is something else, though. Hoo boy
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