Customer Rating: 
Summary: Surprisingly good mouse
Comment: Being a Mac user, I needed a multi-button mouse to go with my multi-button mouseless computer. I think that was three years ago, and this mouse is still going strong. A great mouse all around; I use it for precision movements for artwork and precision movements for FPS games.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great mouse
Comment: I've had this mouse for over 2 years and haven't had any problems. I hot swap it between my old expendable 98se desktop (with the PS2 port adaptor) and my new XP pro laptop (USB plug) all the time and it works perfectly everytime and all buttons are fully functional. After using the two extra forward and back buttons I never want to go back to a 3 button mouse. If I had to pick nits, I'd say this mouse is actually a little big because I use a wrist rest and the mouse tends to bump into it. Otherwise an excellent all round mouse from Microsoft.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Good optical mouse with one big problem
Comment: I have used this mouse for about 3 years and it has served me well for everything, *except* games. This is one of the first generation optical mice, so the sensor doesn't take as many pictures/second as the newer mice. What does this mean? If you're playing fast games (FPS especially) and make a quick movement, the mouse will move in a random direction. Very bad scenario. I've also gotten quite into Tiger Woods 2003, and this mouse is very bad for the game because:
- you need to have perfectly smooth motion to swing the club, since if you move it too fast the mouse moves another direction causing bad swings
and it's good because:
- it trains your hand to have perfectly smooth motion to swing the club, since if you move it too fast the mouse moves another direction causing bad swings
so when I get a next generation mouse my game should be unstoppable :)
Logitech's entry optical model (the most inexpensive, quality, but basic optical mice I've worked with) is much better and doesn't have this same problem, and you can move it as fast as you want without negative results.
In conclusion, the main points of this mouse are:
Pros:
- the side buttons and clickable wheel are convenient and programmable
- optical technology means no more cleaning the mouse ball
(then again, every optical mouse has this feature)
- good size, not too heavy like the Explorer (the next model up)
Cons:
- Games will cause much frustration
- Maybe not all will see this, but mine is rather cheaply build (made in China) and the right mouse button randomly to makes odd feedback when clicked
I suggest skipping this one and going a newer generation mouse with similar features.
Customer Rating:
Summary: great mouse
Comment: Hello. This is great for surfing the internet, the buttons on each side enable one to go back to the previous window with the button on the left hand side of the mouse and the button on the right hand side of the mouse gets you forward again. I also use it to play games with and it works fine for that too. The red light is a bonus.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great to use, but not the most reliable
Comment: I've been using this mouse for a couple years now and I'm definitely hooked on it! I've gotten very used to having the forward and back buttons on the sides for surfing the internet and I love not having to clean the mouse or have problems with it not moving properly. I also like the design of this mouse and how it feels in my hand.Unfortunately, over the time that I have been using this mouse, I have had to exchange the old one a new one 2 different times. The reason in both cases was because the left mouse button would start to get out of sync a little bit. This made it so that if you tapped the button once, half the time it would register a double click. This may not seem like a big deal, but it definitely caused more than a few frustrations.
While, this mouse has the best design that I have found, the reliability of it has been enough of a problem that, if someone else were to design a mouse with a similar layout, I would probably ditch the Microsoft one. But for now, I'll just have to live with returning my mouse every 6 months or so.
