Optical Mouses (Mice?)

[Stephen Coates]

What's everyone's preferences for computer mouses these days?

When optical mouses became a thing in the early 2000s, they were really good, and would work on just about any surface. But several which I've had in recent years are very picky about surfaces.

I got a new MS IntelliMouse Classic a few years ago. That was a really good mouse as it has the same nice form factor as the old IntelliMouses, but after a couple of years, it became quite unreliable. It doesn't work properly on my mouse mat but it will work on my dirty desk surface. Also the scroll wheel went dodgy. Dismantling it and cleaning it helped a little bit but not much.

I've got a shortage of properly working mouses here so I had to dig out an old PS/2 intellimouse (ball type) which I keep in my junk drawer as a spare.

[Harrison]

I actually still use my Logitech G500 mouse which I've had for over 10 years. It was a top of the range gaming mouse at the time with weights you could add to change how heavy it felt to use. It's a wired mouse, rather than battery or rechargeable to you never need to worry about charging it our replacing the batteries, It also has a really nice shape that has been adopted by most of the newer Logitech gaming mice and their pro MX range. It also has extra buttons on the side just above your thumb that I have assigned to shift and ctrl, making it possible to group select or permanently delete without using the keyboard. I also still really like the mouse wheel. It's a weighted metal wheel with a release button. Normally it's clicky when you rotate it so you have control over moving one item at a time, but release it and the wheel free spins. You can spin it fast and it keeps going to scroll down large pages. Very useful.

Ther laser optics have always been really good too. No issues with it working on any surface.

I have been considering buying the current Logitech MX4 mouse. It's a similar shape but wireless and with more features. But something fairly unique is it has haptic feedback. Not sure how useful that would be but it's interesting. The feature is marketed for productivity, so for example if you would moving elements around a page design you would feel when they snap to alignment. Would be interesting if any games add direct support though. Imagine in an RTS feeling the tanks rumbling near you, or in a FPS feeling bullets hit you. It's marketed more for productivity than gaming though as it has a lower DPI than gaming specific mice.

I use to buy Microsoft mice, starting with their Intellimouse Explore v3. That was a big chunky mouse. Nice to use though and might have been my first optical mouse. I still have it somewhere but it's fairly worn and tired. Also still have a couple of their Intellimouse optical white mice. Fairly generic by today's standards but still work find, and they are USB but with a PS/2 adapter which is useful if I need to use an old PC.

It is worth paying a bit more for a decent mouse though. I bought my son a Logitech optical mouse for his first laptop and it still working fine, but now he has a proper gaming laptop I might buy him a better gaming mouse for his birthday next month, Logitech make some very nice lightspeed mice. They range from ?20 up to over ?100.

[Demon Cleaner]

I have 3 Logitech MX Master 3, one is the 3S where the clicks are silent. They are just perfect for me. And reliable.