WORLDS UGLIEST MOUSE

For those who follow our blog, you may already know that I normally use a Logitech MX revolution, and also keep a Microsoft Sidewinder as a spare mouse. More often than not, im rather reluctant to use the Sidewinder as it isnt really the most comfy, or the best looking mouse in the world. Im mean look at it below....its hideous. But now, for the next week or so, i’ll be stuck with this mouse, hence im just here to rant about it.

Previously, I had made a short post about the Sidewinder. However after reviewing the post, i realised i made one big mistake. And that was to take a photo of a black mouse, on the black icemat v2.
Earlier on in the year, I traded my icemat for a similar mousepad made by steelseries. In terms of surface, its identical to the icemat, just different in colour. So why the trade? Long story short, Sum didn’t want a piece of white glass on his desk, so i was kind enough to trade him mine.
So back to the reason why im stuck with the Sidewinder for the next week or two.
For starters, Sum’s MX1100 died, so while its going through its lengthy warranty process, i was kind enough to lend him one of my mice. Knowing that he’d complain about the lack of buttons and the unergonomic design of the sidewinder, i’d decided to lend him my MX rev, just to keep him happy.

So lets look at some of the technical specs
Microsoft claims that this is a 10button mouse



so 1-5 is what you get with a standard 5 button mouse
6 is a record macro button (cannot be reprogrammed and hard to reach)
7-9 are dpi sensitivity buttons (cannot be remapped)
10 is a unusual button that launches the Games folder on your computer. The folder that contains solitaire and mine sweeper etc.... Utterly useless button. Positioned right underneath your palm, so VERY hard to access, and like most of the other buttons, cant be remapped.
So as far as buttons go, its really just a 5 button mouse.

One of the positive things about this mouse is the laser sensor in this mouse. It can be adjusted from 2000 dpi to as low as 200.
As this mouse is all about looking bad, Microsoft even had to put a metallic rim around the laser sensor, just to emphasise its importance.


Speaking of looks, we’ll now go into detail about its ugliness.
For starters...
Looks somewhat like the neon lights you’d find under a street car, but red. To be honest, i wouldn’t mind half as much if this was blue, but red.....hurts my eyes when i try to sleep with this mouse plugged in.

The lights from underneath....looks rather demonic.

The Back and Forward buttons. Personally, i don’t really mind the bling chrome. However, when i first started using this mouse, i got a little bit confused as to which is the forward and back button. These bling buttons gives a really distinctive loud mechanical click when you press down on it.

The scroll wheel Click on picture to view the details. Its a clicky wheel. Which for me is a definite no no. Smooth scrolling feels better, and is a lot nicer to my ears, especially when scrolling down long webpages. Also, no tilt (horizontal scrolling available), which is kinda odd, since Microsoft started introducing tilt scroll to their mice long before the birth of the sidewinder.


Next up is the accessories included with this mouse

For starters, the weights. Well, its not a necessary thing in a mouse, but it is a nice optional extra.
I use weights to simulate the weight of the battery in the MX rev. Also a heavier mouse glided better around a glass surface.

Cable anchor, also doubles as a box to hold 2 different sets of feet for the mouse, and also houses any unused weights.

Heres the anchor in action. Basically you loop the cable through and put the lid ontop of the box…..
Its supposed to stop the cable from going everywhere, but its still rather useless.


Now moving onto the comforts of this mouse. This is by far not the most ergonomic mouse in the world. Looking at the pic below, you can see that Microsoft has attempted to put a tiny bit of effort in, but clearly not enough. After around 10minutes of usage, my hand gets tired. I’ve tried different ways of grip, but it just doesn’t seem to help.



So after all that, I think I’ll go back to using the touchdisc on my beloved dinovo edge.