Perfection is Bliss

Why do some people demand such high quality mice in an age where the mouse has almost hit a design ceiling? Now with the introduction of the first Laser mouse by Logitech many people are questioning how great their LED based optical mice are. I'm one not to worry as I haven't yet been let down by my Microsoft mice. 800 DPI, 1000 DPI, Lasers, blah blah blah. At some point you have to ask yourself “What am I gaining?” In essence nothing much besides mental satisfaction. The last great update to the mouse was when optical hit the scene to replace the ball mouse in 1998. I was an early adopter as this tech sounded so great, and bought myself a v1.0 Microsoft Intellimouse Optical. That mouse laster me for 5 years and I have since upgraded to the Wheel Mouse Optical v2.0. I love every bit of it, especially its lack of extra buttons and features which I will never use.

Logitech and Microsoft make some of the best mice on the market today. I have long been a Microsoft guy ever since using their wheel mice back in the 90s and moved to the optical mouse in 1998. I have to say that optical mice are a godsend. No more mouseball cleaning or worrying about what kind of surface I am using the mouse on. While the Wheel Mouse Optical has held a solid design that fits my gaming needs, Microsoft has released v3.0 of the same mouse, and expanded into 4.0 (Intellimouse Explorer) and even the new wireless lines. I am not an anti-wireless guy, but will refuse to use a mouse that lags during gaming and that eats up batteries every few months. I'll take a simple cord to avoid that headache. Besides, wasn't wireless developed in order to use mice over longer distances than a wire can provide? How many of us, by chance, happen to be sitting more than 7 feet away from the computer? A question which many wireless users refuse to answer.

I've tried most new mice and have come to the conclusion that these new mice offer features which I simply don't need. Extra buttons, weird layouts, leather surfaces? Come on now, some things are just absurd. Especially those small external laptop mice that are 1/3 the size of a regular mouse. For the people who need to use external laptop mice, you either should be using a regular mouse or none at all. Absurdity at its best.

The Wheel Mouse Optical is perfect for me. It has two buttons and the usual wheel with an extra button on the wheel. I don't use the extra thumb buttons on some mice as they interfere with gaming and most games don't even recognize them as buttons. It's design fits my hand very nicely and my palm is able to sit right on the mouse evenly during long gaming sessions or while working on art within Fireworks, whatever the case may be. The buttons are all the perfect stiffness, not being too loose or too stiff where you need to beat the button with a hammer in order to get some response. Microsoft, thank you for outfitting me with such a wonderful piece of art – for the hand. $15 never bought a better mouse. Ever.