Friday, November 11, 2016

Logitech MX-400 (931638-0403) Mouse

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.


I think it’s safe to say that everyone who owns a desktop has used a mouse at some point in their lives.  I’ve never been to a library or school computer lab that didn’t have one hooked up to every computer they had.  If you’ve never used one, you’re probably Amish or have been in a coma for the last 30 years.

If you own a desktop computer and use mice, you know that you have to buy one every few years.  With the old mice, you had balls that had to be cleaned until they could be cleaned no more.  This led humor-list moderators to systematically ban mouse-ball jokes.  (If anyone has any of these, please let me know.  I have yet to actually hear any.)

Eventually, companies developed mice that used optical technology instead of balls.  This meant that there was nothing to clean.  You simply replaced the mouse when it got too dirty.  Fortunately, optical mice have a very long life span if you get a name brand.  This is good because your mouse is not something you want to have to worry about.

If it works well, you won’t really notice it.  Unfortunately, I‘ve noticed this mouse on a few occasions.  One of the features of this mouse that I hadn’t seen before was two buttons on the side where my thumb rests.  (I’m right handed.)  These buttons are to be used with a web browser as forward and backward buttons.

When I first got the mouse, it was way too easy to hit, usually resulting in me going back a few pages.  I got used to it pretty quickly, but I do still occasionally hit them.  Anyone who has had to use the mouse has had the same problem.  It gets pretty annoying if you’re filling out a form or survey that spans several pages.  From what I can see, there’s no option to change this in the control panel.

Everything else about it seems to work fine.  I’ve had the mouse for about 2 or 3 years and it’s just now getting to the point where it’s not moving the cursor properly.  If I wipe the opening where the little hole is, it will work fine again for another few days.  It’s not really an issue, but I do have another mouse on standby if it fails catastrophically in the middle of something important.

The mouse that I got to eventually replace this one doesn’t have the buttons on the side.  I’d never buy another mouse like that and wouldn’t recommend this one based solely on that.  If I was constantly filling out forms on the web, it would probably be enough to drive me insane. 

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