INTELLIGENT mouse (Microsoft Intellimouse Optical)

Member Name: marktjones

Product:	Microsoft Intellimouse Optical
Date:	08/01/01 (30 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Smooth mouse movement, extra buttons, good scroll-wheel

Disadvantages: Can get a little stuck with fluff on the bottom.

I got this mouse about a month ago, because of all the good things I had heard about it, and I have not been disappointed, even with the £40 price tag.

It uses a light which is projected from the bottom of the mouse, to the surface that it is on, to scan it's position every few fractions of a second, and it works really well. You get no slightly jumpy mouse movement, it is all exact and smooth to use. You also notice that the red light dulls down after a few second without using it, thus saving a little bit of energy, which is quite good.

You get 4 buttons on the mouse, including your usual bog-standard left and right buttons, but as well as this, you get 1 either side of the mouse, which are in a good position, because this is where you fingers are anyway, so you are not slightly inconvenienced by using them. These two extra buttons can be programmed however you like because the mouse comes with it's own drivers, you could use these buttons for copy and paste, close windows, show desktop and many more. I just find these so useful to have.

You also have the mousewheel which I feel is softer to roll than most other mice, but it does give some resistance, so that the wheel is good for changing weapons in quake2 for example, but also excellent for scrolling down web-pagegs, as well as zooming in and out of images in Paint Shop Pro.

The only thing that I am slighly miffed about is the fact that it says "never needs cleaning", this is true in one way, because it does not have a ball which needs cleaning, but the contacts between the mouse and the table, which are jst for it to slide along, get a little bit stuffed up with fluff and dust, so you need to wipe them over every do often.

With some mice, they are shaped so that they are good to hold for right-handed people, but are too baddly shaped for the left-hander. This mouse is different, because it is perfectly symettrical, meaning that it is good to ho
ld for both types of handers.

Overall, this is an excellent mouse to use, because it just feels like it has loads of quality, and is very useful too, with all it's extra features.

Summary: