My five-year old computer mouse recently began to act up. I’ll admit it, I’m a little obsessed with input devices for my computer. Adjusting bezier curves on a detailed infographic with a mouse that momentarily ignores you, only to suddenly skip an inch or two can get old really fast. After blowing, tapping, shaking, and banging (last resort) on the thing I decided it was time to head to the local Best Buy to see the latest
mouse offerings.
I’ve never been a fan of the Apple Mouse (Mighty Mouse? Magic Mouse?). I’ve always thought it was an example of Apple’s occasional tendency to favor form over function. I understand that Apple’s mouse has to appeal to a broader market, unlike a company like Logitech, that can feature a whole line of peripherals to suit various user needs. But at it’s simplest, Apple’s input devices have just never felt that comfortable to me. Anyway, a computer mouse is not something you should buy online. You’ve got to hold it in your hand to appreciate the subtle differences between components. So I took a few for a spin, so to speak. After shaking my head in disgust at the general build quality of these things, the weird placement (or lack of) buttons, I finally decided to pay a bit more and go for a gaming mouse, the Logitech G602.
The packaging for this device really appealed to the technical artist in me. The top of the box features a split view of the mouse, the right half of which is a glowing, blue-filtered x-ray image that reveals the inner components of the device. This may be the first packaging that I’ve ever considered keeping just for aesthetic purposes (okay, I didn’t do that, but I admittedly winced a bit when it went in the recycling bin).
Using a variety of illustration and 3D graphics software requires that I have buttons to access application shortcuts, and this mouse has plenty of them. Using a utility called SteerMouse (the Logitech driver is admittedly a bit dodgy on the Mac side) I was able to configure various mouse clicks, scroll functions, and input key combinations, even customizing them for different applications.
Looking like it would be at home on Batman’s utility belt, this thing was obviously designed with the young gamer-set in mind. But the elegant good looks are substantiated with a high-level of comfort and functionality. Who knows, at the rate technology is improving touch gestures, voice input, and pressure-sensitive styli for your computer, maybe this will be my last mouse. But for now, I can highly recommend it.
