Laser Mouse! Like recording HD video to VHS tape!

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So part of my duties at work involves some AutoCAD work and though I don’t spend weeks at a time on my drawing sets, I often spend a few days at a time only working in CAD. I had been noticing a little bit of pain and some overall hand fatigue during recent sessions and decided to look into getting a new mouse to help with the situation. I stopped by Best Buy and Circuit City a couple of times to scope out the offering, but I was not enthused with the options available. I looked online also, but decided that buying something for comfort that I can’t touch and see first seemed kind of stupid, so I went back to the store to look again. I finally decided on the above model. The Microsoft Natural Wireless Laser Mouse 6000. Some name huh? So here’s what I have to say about the mouse with the über-long name……

Comfort wise, my hand has accepted the sphere like shape and general pointing and clicking is much more comfortable. The scroll wheel is smooth, no more of that playing card in a bicycle wheel sound for me. The main two mouse buttons are equally as pleasing and easy to use. The wheel button is a might tough however, I use Firefox and open almost EVERY link with a middle click and this mouse was not built for that kind of usage. I find myself having to put some real muscle behind my middle clicks, which isn’t very ergo. I also have to be very careful not to let the mouse move while finger wrestling the wheel button, which brings me to the main disappointment I have experienced with this here mouse. The movement precision is VERY underwhelming. This is specifically due to the Wireless part of the fancy name. Wireless has come a long way, but motion translated over the air just isn’t there yet in the mouse department. I suppose it’s fine for Word docs and web surfing, but for CAD, or any other software that requires precision, wireless is still sloppy. I actually bought a wireless mouse a couple of years ago and returned it for that very reason. I guess Microsoft, and the rest of em’, just haven’t got the technology to provide wireless precision pointing just yet.

So what am I to do? I love the shape and it has been keeping my CAD days much more comfortable, but the precision is sloppy and I find myself tightening my hand position to compensate for the sloppy movement. I am certainly missing out on some of the “Natural” feel I should be getting. I have considered buying a Wacom tablet to see if it works, but I don’t really want to keep tossing $$ into my search for the perfect pointing device.

Any suggestions?

-Kamen