We have said it
from day one in our reviews, buying guides, and even on the
news when possible, spending a considerable amount of money
in a good keyboard and mouse is not a waste of your hard
earned cash. After all, those are the devices you will be
interacting with 90% of time. Be it because of ergonomic
reasons or plain comfort, if you are serious about
computing, we certainly encourage you to invest in such
high-end input devices rather than in the latest quad-GPU
graphics board.
That is the reason today we are taking a
look at six mice ranging from $20 to a bit over $50. The
contenders today are from Logitech: the MX1000 and MX518,
from Razer: the Viper and Diamondback, and from Microsoft:
the Wireless Intellimouse Explorer, and the Optical Mouse by
S+ARCK.
Logitech MX1000
Logitech’s flagship mouse was the first
we tested. Boasting a laser sensor, the MX1000 gives 20
times the tracking power of a regular optical mouse
according to Logitech; not surprisingly it’s the most
expensive of the pack but undoubtedly is the one that
differentiates the most as well.
Although regular optical mice have
improved over the past few years, the laser equipped MX1000
excelled when testing it on a variety of surfaces. We
randomly grabbed items such as sheets of paper, folders,
glass, and even a t-shirt, and the mouse was still able to
function. The mouse comes with a battery meter on
the side that displays how much battery life is left, a
handy feature that we would expect to see more often in
newer mice. As with optical mice, if you don’t make use of
it for several seconds, the battery indicator turns off and
the mouse goes into power saving mode.
The shape of the mouse may seem a bit
odd at first, but it is easy to get used to. On the left
side of the mouse, there is an indentation that makes a
perfect location to place the thumb.
Although Microsoft was the first to jump
into the side-to-side scrolling bandwagon, it didn’t take
long for Logitech to catch up; this is another of the
features in the MX1000. Once the mouse is configured
properly using Logitech's SetPoint software, the
side-to-side scrolling is a wonderful feature especially
when web browsing or in other applications such as
Photoshop, or even in games once you get used to, you could
make good use of it for scrolling through inventory, among a
number of different other uses. Although the mouse does
work without installing any drivers, Logitech includes their
own SetPoint software which allows user customization of the
8 buttons available.
I tested playing good old Quake III,
Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, Doom III, and
Diablo II, and found the mouse to perform well at all times
however at the same time one may say it wasn’t anything too
spectacular or different than other of the mice reviewed
here. This last remark especially goes for the laser
technology which has been used to market the mouse as a
high-end device. Although laser has somewhat proven to be
better than existing optical mice, that doesn’t necessarily
mean a whole world of difference in tracking or mouse
response.
Nevertheless, Logitech expects to grab
hardcore gamers’ attention with the MX1000 and from what we
have seen, they haven’t done bad at all. People more
sensitive to high prices will want to know the MX1000 can
now be bought for slightly more than $50 which is way better
than the introductory price of ~$80.
Pros:
Unbelievable ability to track
movement on many surfaces
Logitech’s flagship mouse was the first
we tested. Boasting a laser sensor, the MX1000 gives 20
times the tracking power of a regular optical mouse
according to Logitech; not surprisingly it’s the most
expensive of the pack but undoubtedly is the one that
differentiates the most as well.
