Mighty Mouse! (Apple Mighty Mouse)

Member Name: SpankMarvin

Product:	Apple Mighty Mouse
Date:	13/10/03 (4716 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lovely looking, Functional, Reliable and robust

Disadvantages: Expensive, One button may be a problem for some, Short cable

If you own a Macintosh, you may decide to buy a mouse for it. Indeed, there’s not a lot you can do without one. Even if you have a notebook with a trackpad, you can achieve far more control and accuracy with a mouse, space permitting.

But which mouse to buy? This one which looks like a nice normal grey generic mouse? Or what about that one? OR, this one which LOOKS like a mouse, but a bit cooler?

Apple’s own mouse is a simplistic, beautiful-looking thing which connects via USB. It is certainly a joy to look at, principally because it looks so unusual in its simplicity. A (perfectly formed) lump of clear plastic houses a white slab with an Apple logo on it, and makes you wonder where the buttons are. But as is always the case with stylish Apple goodies, with style comes functionality.

The top of the mouse is actually one giant button, meaning that the user pushes the whole mouse to click. Whereas this can seem very alien at first, it soon becomes second nature, and actually starts to feel more natural than standard mouse button clicking. To aid this, there is a nifty dial on the mouse’s underside. Turning this changes the button’s resistance to approximately the following three wrist strengths:

Lowest setting – Fragile woman, e.g. Victoria Beckham
Middle setting – Vicar
Highest setting – Strong man, weightlifting vicar, Mel C

Very handy (no pun intended). But what else is there? Well, as is practically standard with today’s mouse plurals, this mouse uses infra red instead of a mouse ball. This provides far greater accuracy, optically reading the surface of the mouse mat. Lack of moving parts also means there is no deterioration in the responsiveness. The mouse will not become sluggish, and will offer the same level of performance for all of its life.

So how does it perform? Well, a combination of the above points means that the experience of
using Apple’s mouse is a very comfortable, reliable one. As stated above, the button system becomes a very natural action, particularly with the variable resistance setting. The mouse is accurate, responsive and technically trouble-free.

However, there are a few niggling little problems with what is otherwise a five-star product.

Firstly, the price. £39 is a lot of money to pay for a mouse. However, what this price covers is reliability in what will inevitably become one of Apple’s many design classics. Furthermore, it is a sturdy piece of equipment which will last.

A potentially annoying trait of the mouse is its rather short cable. Whereas this can be a joy to those who want no cable clutter, it can also be slightly restrictive. However, this does not happen very often, and could be seen as advantageous to many.

Some users may also dislike the lack of a second button for contextual menus, and scroll wheel. The scroll wheel is a slight disadvantage, but contextual menus can be accessed by clicking with the control button pressed down instead of using a second mouse button. The symmetry offered by the single button means that should you suddenly become left-handed, you don’t have to fiddle about in the system preferences swapping round the two buttons. But on a serious level, this would prove very useful if, say, your computer was being used for demonstration purposes, and a large number of people who could be left or right handed are using your machine and mouse. Move it to the other side of the keyboard and you're sorted.

Overall, a very reliable, comfortable and stylish mouse, but with it, a slightly steep price tag. It is a beautiful piece of kit, which goes especially well with the white Apple products such as the G4 iMacs. If you want a robust mouse which looks great, and you are prepared to pay a little more, you can’t really go wrong with this.

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