This mouse was designed for my hand? Feels like my hand was designed for this mouse, it's that good.

I recently decided to upgrade my current mouse (a Logitech wheel mouse) to the Microsoft IntelliMouse Optical which I bought from Dabs.com.


Installation
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Upon plugging in the USB connection the computer instantly found the mouse and I was treated to a warm red glow from the device itself. So the basic functions worked straight away - a two button wheel mouse, but I wanted more, much more......

Examining the packaging it came in I found a driver disc and a rather sparse manual covering the basics of installation. So one read later (less than a minute) found me placing the driver disc in the CD tray. AutoPlay revealed a simplistic menu which allowed me to install the mouse in one easy click, and after this the mouse settings menu appeared on the screen.


Setting up
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Now this menu is quite in-depth, covering each and every button on the mouse as well as its sensitivity and settings. The first page allows the user to choose from 47 different functions to assign to one of the five buttons including the wheel. These functions range from your standard click (left mouse button) to more interesting ones such as Copy, Paste, Refresh or Back. This is a mouse whose functions are designed to make the internet or a word processor quicker to use, I just chose the basic settings which are what you would expect on a three button mouse plus a button for "Back" and one for "Refresh", very convenient.

The other pages allow you to change the mouse's schemes (for what the pointers look like) it's sensitivity, the functionality of the wheel plus some interesting other options such as "Show location of pointer when you press the CTRL key" and "ClickLock". The latter being when you click and momentarily hold the left mouse button allowing
you to highlight or drag an object or text without any further holding of the button, simply press it again to release.


First use
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Now that I have it installed and ready to go I straight away load up Quake 3, a notable game which is heavily reliant on the use of a mouse for quick fire situations. Amazing! That's all I can say, no more jumping or refusing to move at all, I now have silky smooth movement and instantly find I'm better at the game. Even normal tasks such as using windows explorer or surfing the internet have become more enjoyable thanks to the ergonomic design with a logical layout of the five buttons so that each one nestles under the relevant finger.

How has my movement become so natural?

This is primarily because of one key component nestled inside the mouse - the IntelliEye. Having just bought the mouse recently I found that it is the updated version which is supposedly 33% faster than the previous version. As it doesn't have a ball there is nothing to get stuck and also there is less wear and tear on the mouse since there are no moving parts to it


Looks
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To be honest this is one damn sexy mouse as far as mice go, with a beautiful red glow emanating from the base every time it moves along with the silver side and middle buttons. The unit is finished off in a cream colour and certainly looks the part; much better that my old dull grey one. The weight is very light and when using it feels as if it's floating on a cushion of air.


Overall
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I'm incredibly pleased with my purchase, it cost me £30 from Dabs though in Dixons it's £39.99 and only took 2 days to arrive. Many people don't think you need to spend that much on a mouse for what just browsing the Internet or games but believe me, stay in next weekend and use the money you've saved to buy this mouse. You will not be disappointed.