What is it? A wireless desktop mouse by Microsoft.
What did it cost you? $49.95 at my local Costco.
How long have you owned it? Since mid-2005 at the very latest.
PROS
- ERGONOMICS Just by looking at it you can tell its an ergonomic mouse, what with all its funky curves. And it sure feels like one. Its very comfy, and your hand never gets tired.
- BATTERY LIFE I think Ive only changed the batteries in this thing twice since we bought it. You cant beat that.
- SCROLL BALL With the way its designed, you can flick it hard and it can go through stuff pretty fast. And I just discovered its 4-way. While its not as good as the Mighty Mouses implementation of it (tilting vs. scrolling), its better than nothing.
- SIDE BUTTONS While its tricky to change what does what, I can configure it so I can activate Exposé with the big side button and open a Finder window with the little side button. Very useful
- WIRELESS No cords FTW. If you need further explaining, youre either a hardcore gamer or you need help.
- TRACKING It glides over surfaces very smoothly and easily. After using a Mighty Mouse, this was a welcome quality.
- RECEIVER Its that big gray hockey puck lookin thing under my monitor. Its better than cords, but I would much prefer it to be Bluetooth so I dont have to look at it.
- BRAND Its made by Microsoft, for crying out loud! The only thing thats good about them is the Xbox and maybe MS Office. Its shameful (for Mac users at least, everyone else couldnt care less).
- SOFTWARE Using Microsofts mouse software to remap functions and change settings isnt very intuitive, but again, this applies to Macs and maybe Linux machines. On PCs, everything is unsurprisingly excellent.
- SCROLL BALL While it has some decent functions that I detailed earlier, it also has its problems. The wheel isnt precise like other mice it feels unresponsive. Plus, the middle click is just about worthless.
Conclusion: I know that many of my counterpoints seem like Im nitpicking, and I am. There really isnt anything substantially bad about the mouse, and if I were on Vista or XP, youd see a higher rating like a 9. This mouse does its job well, and you wont be disappointed in it.
Official Site