Somewhat Of A Change For Me....
Up to this point, I've been a fan of the MS Optical Mouse Blue, but since they are getting harder and harder to come by and as they aren't, as far as I can tell, being made anymore, I decided it was time to find another mouse. I chose this one as it could be used by either hand. I'm usually right handled, but I use a left handed mouse and fine it more confortable if the mouse will "fit" either hand. This mouse fills that bill. The old Optical Blue mouse's scroll wheel is a bit "looser" and easier to turn than on this one but that really didn't brother me. I noted that the mouse buttons on this mouse are not hinged the same way and that the top of the mouse is one big cover that reaches from front to back. I sort of like this approach. This mouse has an extra button on the left hand side so you can, with the mouse drivers installed, enlarge a portion of the screen. (I haven't really used that very much but because my eye sight isn't what it once was, this might get farther use.) Also the scroll wheel allows you to scroll in four directions. Up, down, left, and right. At first, I didn't understand how this worked, then I found out that turning the wheel controls up and down, and "tilting" the wheel either left or right control left or right. (You don't turn the wheel you just tilt it and it will scroll.) Once again the only complain I have is that the drivers don't seem to a support scroll function in some software that the older drivers did. I have an old version of Quicken (ver. 4.0R7 to be exact) and the 4.1 drivers gave me scrolling on this app. and a number of others too. But when I updated the drivers above this version of MS drivers this function was gone and I had to go back to using the scroll bar on Quicken. I can get use to this but I failed and still fail to see why MS couldn't have left that alone. Oh, well. This mouse is a good upgrade from my old Optical Blue and the increase precision is great in games. I felt it to be a really good buy. Update: 10/12/14 I noted elsewhere that the point was made about the center mouse wheel/button being hard to turn. I had noted that it tented to have some resistance to it when you tried to turn it. I chalked this up to it being new, but I now have to see it as problem with this mouse. The mouse I brought is still working very well and other than this problem, works very well. The enlarging left hand button has been a bit hard for me to get used to getting out of, but is has been handy. The biggest problem with the middle mouse button/wheel is the amount of resistance to turning it has. Though I don't recommend this to others buying this mouse, I think I found out what causes the resistance. If one looks closely at the center mouse wheel, one sees that it has a "protector" around it that seems to touch it at points. (I guess this is supposed to keep dust etc., out of the wheel well.) After I looked this over carefully I noted that this "protector" is domed shaped item with a hole in the center that the wheel comes up through. My mouse had gotten so hard to turn the wheel that the center mouse button was actually being clicked when I tried to scroll! I'm one of the people that tend to try and repair an item if it seems repairable. This mouse was no different. I took the pads off the bottom, unscrewed the four screws holding the top on and after gently lifting off the top, I removed this dome with the hole in it. What A difference!!! The wheel was freed up and turned easily and had enough resistance so you could scroll with out a problem. It seems that MS, I their zeal to protect the mouse was dirt, etc., had created another problem they hadn't for seen. Like I said if a person likes this mouse's features and doesn't mine fooling around a bit like I do the scroll wheel can be fixed. That said, I think the cheaper MS basic mouse is a better buy now. Read more