UC Unleashed

Microsoft Touch Mouse

My favorite mouse is the Microsoft Presenter 8000 mouse. It’s comfortable, gets great battery life, and has the presentation buttons and laser pointer built into the bottom. Unfortunately, after many many trips through airports, my mouse finally died.

I decided to see what else was available. I’d tried the Microsoft Arc mouse, but didn’t find it that comfortable, and the “back” button on the side wasn’t in an ideal location, and was quite stiff. A colleague had reported that the newer Arc Touch mouse was kinda cool, but he didn’t like it after trying it.

Microsoft recently released the Touch Mouse. This is a uber cool mouse that has no real buttons on the top or sides. It uses finger gestures and the entire top is a giant button. The unit supports one, two, and three finger gestures in a variety of directions, as well as thumb gestures in two directions. The unit includes a micro dongle that stores in the bottom of the unit. It is powered by two AA batteries, and has an on/off switch on its belly.

Setup was a breeze. The mouse is designed specifically for Windows 7. I inserted the dongle, and within seconds, a tutorial popped onto the screen demonstrating the various features and gestures. It walks you through each gesture, shows you what it controls, and then has you do the same thing to get the hang of it. I found the tutorial to be the perfect combination of information and length. There are certainly a lot of gestures you can use. Single finger gestures include the normal scrolling up, down, and sideways. Two finger gestures include docking apps to the left and right side of the screen, restoring and maximizing apps, etc. Three finger gestures include minimizing and maximizing all apps. And the thumb gestures work great for forward/back movements, such as those in your Internet browser. Button clicking is based on which finger is touching the unit when you press the forward part of the unit down.

This is a nice mouse. It works great, although it did take some getting used to when I needed to right-click on things. I’m not sure how often I’ll use some of the gestures, but it’s nice to see the availability of them. Scrolling up and down really gets going if you swipe quickly, and lift your finger off the unit – something else I had to get used to since I typically used a wheel that would only turn so far when I’d let go of it.

The $50 mouse was a great addition to my travel tech gear. It would have been nice if it came in a plastic shell, like the Presenter Mouse does. I just use the cloth pouch from the Arc mouse and it works great. I’d recommend the mouse if you’re looking for something slick. I think I’ll get another one for my desktop at home.