While this is late to the game, some key observations that still apply to this mouse, and to other mice as well.

1) By removing one battery, the weight is reduced about 30 grams...partially compensating up for the higher mouse weight. The author said this mouse was 45g heavier than his wired version. Taking out one battery leaves it only 15g heavier.

2) You can use rechargeable batteries and have the cost advantages of rechargeables and the "zero-down-time" of regular cells. You don't have to buy a mouse with special rechargeable batteries. In fact, if the rechargeable batteries aren't customer replaceable, then after 300-500 recharge cycles (depending on the battery chemistry) you have to either replace the mouse or send it to the factory for a new battery.

To maximize convenience, I've taken to installing both batteries, but putting a small piece of paper between the connector and the battery post on one of the batteries. That way, when the first battery runs down, all I have to do is pull-out the piece of paper and I'm up and running instantly. No searching for an interim battery. The only down-side is that most battery chargers are designed to recharge AA batteries in pairs.

With 2500mAh NiMH AA batteries, I get about 2-3 months of life between rechargings.

The MX 700 is the mouse for me. It has good balance (not perfect...but good enough). The forward and back buttons are well positioned. I tried the MS mouse, but the smooth vertical scroll disorients me. I like the tactile feeedback the MX700 gives. And batteries...no worries. When you go to bed, turn the lights off, and put the mouse to bed. Eventually the rechargables will wear out too, but it beats being in the middle of an online game and having to find new AA s at 2 in the morning.

On the mouse front. I've been thinking of getting the new boomslang. Anyone use(d) it? Any imparessions would be welcome.

I would like to see a mouse with a horizontal wheel for the thumb, mainly for spreadsheets. I had a cell phone a few years back with a thumb-wheel for scrolling through the address book, and it was great.

the mx700 that I have isn't laggy at all. are you using the logitech drivers? I never do, they're usually a piece of crap. windows recognizes all the buttons except the window switcher button without any drivers installed. lag-free gaming.

it also helps that I got my mx700 for free as a gift, but really it would have been worth the purchase.

the MS mouse reviewed in this article - my bro just bought one. it seems nice though I wouldn't call it quite as responsive as the mx700 - it might be the powersave stuff. it's definately a bit lighter so if that makes a difference to you then by all means, it's a nice mouse. I personally didn't like the fact that the mousewheel doesn't "click" when you scroll it, makes it hard to use as a FPS mouse when scroll is change weapons.

I wish that MS would have made a wireless mouse just like their intellimouse (the non-ergonomic one). Fast response, light, good feel. MS does make very nice hardware. but, now that I have my mx700, it's probably a moot point - not giving this one up :)

I can't think of one program I use on a regular basis that would use the tilt wheel.

I'll stick with my Logitech MX700.

MS will never get the truly precise, instantaneous, lag-free response while still using standard batteries. That's the whole point of the MX700 -- it uses a recharging cradle so you can charge it frequently because it uses a lot more juice. It uses a lot more juice to keep it more awake, longer, so you don't get that lag and dead-zone that you get with every other wireless mouse I have ever seen, Microsoft's and older Logitech's included.

Gyration Ultra GT, coolest mouse ever! Design is weird, but its function is out of this world. No need for a surface, air will do just fine!

Side scrolling would be nice. But I'd rather deal with a cord than with batteries. And I've yet to find a mouse thats remotely as comfortable as my boomslang.

I can't remember what I was doing, but there have been a number of recent times I was wishing for a scroll wheel on my keyboard.

Things must be really slow in the tech world if they are reviewing mice. What's next, mouse pads, air dusters, or power strips?

I bought one for work, liked it so much I asked for one for Xmas. And then bought 3 as Xmas presents. You do need a fairly recent OS, 95 and 98 are not supported.

I've been doing great with my Logitech MX500 (wired) mouse over the last year and see no reason to change or go wireless.

I tried this piece of sh*t.

My CAD software requires the wheel to pe configured as "middle button"

On this mouse, you can configure the wheel as a lot of things, but "middle button" isn't one of them.

Sheesh!

I found this mouse too big and cumbersome (and especially heavy, the weight of the mouse to me is the single most important feature,) when I tried it at Compusa a few weeks ago. I haven't liked any recent MS or logitech mice, most of the features seem like just adding feature for fun's sake, not really any functional reason. I perhaps scroll horizontally, what, once a month max, if that?

I still use a Logitech Wingman gaming mouse for gaming. I use the 3 buttons for fire, forward, and reverse in shooters. I've tried using WASD, but I just can't get the hang of it.

I don't know what I'll do when I finally wear this mouse out :-(

I also have an MX 700 connected for websurfing and what not. I like the mouse, but the clicky scroll wheel is annoying, I preferred the smooth scroll of the MS mice.

My Logitech Wireless Mouseman Optical at work lasts <2 months with 9-hour a day usage. It seems like we're changing batteries constantly. And this is on so-called 'best for digital' batteries.

Would be interesting to see if MS's 6-month claim is indeed correct, given 9hour/day usage.

Geoff, do the mouse buttons still work without the drivers? Do you still get the Wireless tab in mouse.cpl?

Speaking of the extra buttons, I don't like having both of them together by the (right) thumb. I have an MS mouse labelled Intellimouse Optical, and it has one button for your thumb and one for your ring finger. Not only do I like this more, it seems like it would be better for left-handed folks too.

How about Mac availability? this 1 button mouse is obnoxious :(

Excellent review, Dis. May your words be as immortal as Damage's ;)

What I'm most curious about is the driver.

I tried Intellipoint 5.0 on my WinXPPro setup (with my original Intellimouse Explorer, the one with the big side buttons) and it crashed every five to ten minutes and wanted to send an error report to Microsoft and then reload itself, only to crash again...

The prior version allowed me to map the side buttons to CTRL and SHIFT (useful for file manipulation...) and 5.0 doesn't allow that, either.

/me foresees reported repetitve motion injury cases rise in direct statistical correlation to purchases, as countless victims of Microsoft iniquity ubiquity acquire the chronic daily nervous tick that will come to be known as SIDS (Shake It before it Dies Syndrome).

Things I dislike:
*The fact that the side buttons are buttons (and not an auto-centralised small 'lever' sticking out slightly acting as a small and easy thumb toggle for forward and back).
*The general weight of wireless mice I dislike (let alone unbalanced weight)
*The shape/size of the mouse (it's too big and uncomfortable for my hands, as are nearly all MS mice to me)
*The 'battery power' indicator in the software probably wouldn't work too good with Ni-MH batteries since they drop their voltage rather rapidly when they die, rather than gradually, like Alkalines. I'm assuming the battery indicator would really only give useful information when using alkalines and other single-use batteries. I'm assuming the mouse works fine with Ni-MH rechargeables?
*The 'deep sleep' power-saving state of the mouse. I want my mouse to be 'awake' always, gaming or not. I dislike latency.

Things I like:
*horizontal scrolling sounds useful to me.
*The mouse appears to not "show off" its lights, right? Please say yes. I hate glowy mice, yet I have yet to find a decent optical mouse that doesn't show off its lights in my neck of the woods. The top horizontal scroll thing does looks transparentish tho. I hope no light passes through it.

There have been other horizontal mice with different implementations of the scrolling for years. Howerver, I haven't been interested in them, and I am not really interested in this one so far. I dislike MS's mouse designs so I will wait for a better (and wired) implementation. Wireless mice are heavily overrated to me, tho they do come in handy when changing channels while watching TV with DScaler - the only good use I've found for them so far :)

IIRC Radio Shack was selling a store-branded mouse with both horizontal and vertical scroll wheels several years ago. Unfortunately it used an entirely proprietary driver and horizontal scrolling functionality was a bit buggy...

logitech mx500 makes me happy. I could notice latency on the mx700 since I am just as anal about latency...

no glow-ness and lightweight enough if you open it up and remove the metal puck. (doh)