A couple of years ago I finally tired of the traditional ball mouse, when mine gave up the ghost completely. Now I have a snappily titled Samsung OMS3PBOptical Wheel Mouse - but what does a name matter?
A mouse is one of those things that you never think about until it goes wrong. Two years of trouble-free mouse ownership, my wheel began to stick and be less precise. Now, wheelstick is not a fatal condition, and can be cured by opening the body of the mouse with a small screwdriver. An even smaller screwdriver was required to undo the tiny screws which held the wheel's casing in place and after cleaning, the mouse was as good as new. This was fiddly, but compared to the endless cleaning I had to do with a traditional mouse, it was a piece of cake.
For those of you who don't have an optical mouse, the pointer is simply guided by a beam of light. On this model, the red bulb goes to full brightness when you move the mouse and is dim the rest of the time. I'm not 100% sure exactly how a beam of light tells the pointer where to go, but it is pretty natty.
The advantage of this system is that it is pretty oblivious to the surface it is on, provided it is not highly reflective (the poor mouse gets confused). As long as you don't cover your mouse mat in tin foil this is not going to be a problem! I found the best traction was to be had on the underside of my mouse mat, as the lack of friction on the shiny side made for a skiddy mousing experience. This had the added bonus of me not having to see the garish design of my mouse mat.
The mouse comes in two colours, either green or orange translucent plastic with a mainly white base. It is ambidextrous and can be used by either right or left handers. The wheel has a really good rubbery feel to it and is very responsive, as is the mouse. The buttons have a satisfying click to them and I have found that everything works very reliably.
I also had no probelms setting it up. The software driver worked first time, which is more than I can say for my soundcard, and installation was very straightforward. Mine is a PS2 model, but you can also get a USB mouse at the same price. The PS2 variety is compatible with Windows 95 and above, and with a DOS driver will work happily with old DOS games, such as the abandonedware version of Elite2 I downloaded.
There is not much to fault about this product, especially at the price of £9.99. Recommended for those who don't want to shell out on a cordless rodent.
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