Product Survey: Mice - DigitalVersus

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Product Survey: Mice

You may not have noticed but you spend a lot of time with a mouse in your hand. A high quality model produces less strain, has gains in precision and reactivity as well as automating the most common tasks.
In this arena, the competition between Logitech, Microsoft and the others is ferocious.

Vincent Alzieu
Updated: October 05, 2009

Cabled or wireless?

In the past, gamers immediately responded, "cabled" because wireless mice were less reactive. This is no longer the case today and there are a few rare models that hold up to the comparison with the best cabled products. The one problem that could cause some hesitation is that all wireless models can be subject to interference. The other main worry is battery life. Are you organised enough to keep an eye on the charge of your mouse, or are you likely to find yourself running out of juice minutes before a deadline or at a critical stage in the game?

These two worries aside, the main reason people choose cabled mice over wireless ones often boils down to the fact that the latter are more expensive ...

Most people don't actually realise how much better using a quality mouse is until they've tried it out. Spending a lot of money on such a basic peripheral may seem entirely irrational, especially when just about every computer includes one free.

The best place to start is finding a friend who's already made the switch to a decent mouse, and compare it with your own. After a few hours, you should notice improved comfort, much more responsiveness and the ability to use the mouse on almost any surface, not just a clean, smooth mouse mat. More advanced mice will also allow you to programme their extra buttons or even change resolution on-the-fly depending on the software you're using.

If that doesn't convince you, there are a lot of other good reasons why a mouse upgrade can be a sound investment:

Design--modern mice are sculpted to be comfortable in the hand, with manufacturers paying a lot of attention to the position of the fingers and the palm to prevent strain.

Laser Sensors--classic infrared sensors should really sit on a mouse mat. Not so laser sensors, which can track your movement across a wide range of surfaces, whether that's your desk, the carpet on the floor or the fold out table on a plane ...

Smart Scroll Wheels--some Logitech mice allow you to switch from a wheel that turns freely (useful for reading through long documents or websites) to a notched wheel, which helps prevent unwanted movement during gaming. Another alternative is replacing the wheel altogether with a touch-sensitive panel like the one on Apple's iPod.

Higher Resolution--the higher the resolution, the faster the cursor will move across the screen. As a guide, 800 dpi is perfect for screens that are 19'' or smaller, but 1200 dpi is more comfortable on 22'' screens as it is easier to travel across them, while the same principle applies to 1600 dpi on 24'' monitors. If you have two monitors on your desk, you might even want to consider going higher than that, and a lot of specialist mice allow you to customise the resolution, sometimes down to within a single dpi.

Greater Frequency--an average 125 Hz mouse sends its position to the computer 125 times a second, or once every 8 ms, but a 1000 Hz mouse brings this interval down to an update every 1 ms. Latency drops and movement is naturally more fluid and accurate as changes in speed and direction are communicated earlier.