Customer Reviews

Apple Mighty Mouse Wireless Kit

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(39)
3 star:		(24)
2 star:		(40)
1 star:		(27)

 

 

When I first got this I was disappointed by the speed of the tracking. It was TOO slow, but I later discovered that day that I could easily fix this by installing SteerMouse from Apple's main site. Which give's you full customization for your Mighty Mouse. And SteerMouse is free by the way..

Just search SteerMouse on google and you should find what you need.

I quote from Apple's download site:

About SteerMouse
An advanced driver for USB and Bluetooth mice. It also supports Apple Mighty Mouse very well.

SteerMouse can assign various functions to buttons that Apple's software does not allow, including double-clicks, modifier clicks, application switching, assignment of shortcut keys, "snap to" cursor movement, which moves the cursor to target (such as an OK button), and more.

SteerMouse lets you control the cursor's Sensitivity on top of the Tracking Speed. (Apple's software only allows adjustment for the Tracking Speed.) By adjusting both configurations, you can customize the ideal setting for the cursor to fit the movements of your hand.

New, out of the box, this is a great mouse. The design is simple yet elegant: it functions very well...for a few months that is, until the scroll ball gets dirty (and it will get dirty). Once that happens, the mouse is done. The scroll sensation begins to feel rough and gravelly under your finger, and scroll sensitivity becomes intermittent and unpredictable. Apple suggests various techniques for cleaning the ball, but none of them are effective. So, if you don't mind forking over $70 for a new mouse, say, every four to six months, by all means get a Mighty Mouse. You'll love it while it works.

Overall, this is a pretty darned good mouse. It features excellent tracking, it is thankfully minimalistic (unlike many mice that have so many buttons it's nearly impossible to figure out how to use the bloody thing), and has that wonderful mini-trackball, which is the best possible way to navigate webpages or large displays (such as Photoshop). Bluetooth pairing with my iMac was a piece of cake, and mouse sensitivity and speed is excellent. Stylistically, it is a great looking mouse -- typical Jonathan Ives stuff.

On the downside, the biggest complaint I have about the mouse is that the right click function is slightly spotty for some reason (right-clicks register maybe 95% of the time), and the shape is not ergonomic (though not bad in the hand). I'd prefer an Apple ergonomic mouse with the same minimalist configuration.

03-14-2008 Update: Well, the mouse just expired... I was using the scroll ball and it basically froze and would not turn anymore. Despite an hour trying to fix the problem, including an attempt at disassembling the device, it finally went into the trash and I picked up a Logitech v470 replacement. This was a disappointment given the mouse wasn't that old, but outside of its warranty period. Check out my Logitech review.

This is an unfortunate little critter. While I understand the necessity for Apple to make products that look different and function different (I laud them for their creativity), unfortunately with this product it came at the expense of functionality.

The Good:

1.) The scroll wheel is quite refreshing to use, and works in any direction. Very nice.
2.) It pairs easily with any Apple system with Bluetooth. Very easy, and no software needed.

The Bad:

1.) There's a HUGE amount of input lag from this mouse. As is fairly typical with Bluetooth mouse, the milliseconds of delay from when you move the mouse to when the mouse responds is very noticeable. Older people or those less susceptible to this issue may not even notice it. For me, it's obvious. Really, really obvious. I couldn't bear it.

2.) The mouse scroll wheel can gunk up with oils/dirt/dust, and you can't clean it. Scroll wheel basically dies.

3.) Yes, the mouse does have a right click. But there are problems. Apple thought they'd be clever and add in a form of touch recognition. Basically, if you click the left side of the mouse, it registers a left click. If you click the right side, it registers a right click. However, you can't be resting your pointer finger on the left side if you want to click the right, because the mouse thinks you're clicking left since it can't recognize more than one finger. A real nuisance to have to keep lifting your pointer finger off the mouse to right click! Gah!

4.) The side buttons require far too much pressure to activate, and are very uncomfortable to reach.

Overall:

Just not worth it. Get a Logitech VX Nano or a different mouse of this ilk. This mouse should be eaten. Bring on a new one, Apple.

I'm a Windows user who happens to like Apple's design aesthetic.

The wireless Might Mouse works well with my Lenovo laptop running Windows Vista. I'm using the built in blue tooth card and drivers - which means no dongles to carry along! No special drivers are needed either.

I like the mouse! It's clean (no visible buttons), tracks well and has good heft.

Issues I have found are -

- 3 of the 4 possible buttons work under Windows - Left, Right and Middle click. On Mac's - squeezing the sides of the mouse triggers a fourth button; this doesn't happen with Vista's default mouse driver.

- The ball allows scrolling up and down, but not sideways on Vista.

- Pairing the mouse with Bluetooth is easy - as long as you know the default "code" on the mouse is 0000.
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Update after a few months of use: Apple has prioritized form over function. I liked this enough to buy my wife one too - and we both found our wrists hurting after a few months of use. The mighty mouse is not ergonomic.

I've since stopped using it and moved back to a Microsoft ergonomic mouse. It's not as pretty, but I value my wrists. I don't recommend this mouse if you intend using it for hours a day.

When we first got this mouse, we loved it, but it has a major design flaw. There is no way to really clean the little track ball, unless you disassemble the entire mouse and are really good with puzzles. Besides this, the bluetooth works flawlessly, the feel and usefulness is everything you would expect from Apple. Given the design flaw, Apple should start a cleaning support program that would allow you to get a free cleaning each year.

I have had two of these mice and used them for over a year in total, so this review isn't based on a quick fist impression.

I have an iMac, two MacBook Pros, and iPods for everyone in my family, so I'm not an Apple hater. Therefore it pains me to call this mouse terrible. I really wanted to like it.

First, the performance of the Mighty Mouse is extremely average for the price, and the trackball is one of the worst ideas ever. Seriously, if mice evolved beyond using a physical ball for motion detection, why would anyone think a ball would make a good replacement for a scroll wheel?

To prove this point, after a few months both mice stopped strolling down. This is the most common use for the scroll ball, so it makes sense it would fail first.

Of course the mouse is glued shut, so there is no way to clean it. Apple's instructions (blow air) and a host of online suggestions failed to restore downward scrolling.

When my first mouse failed in this way, I disassembled the mouse (which required breaking glued seals with a sharp knife) and learned the cause of problem. The scroll ball sits on four cylindrical rollers, one on each side. The roller that measures downward motion had basically disintegrated. It wasn't that dirt had gotten in; the actual mechanism fell apart and clogged itself with broken pieces of roller.

The same thing is happening to the replacement mouse I purchased once I realized there was no fixing my last one, and I'm not going to give Apple a third chance. It's back to Logitech for me.

And finally, I also find the "squeeze" action needed to trigger the side buttons unnatural and basically useless.

WOW! Amazing that apple allowed this to happen. I didn't listen to the reviews in reference to the bad scroll ball. It is really bad. Many state that it breaks after using it for a while, but mine didn't funtion properly out the box. Sure you can put alcohol on a q-tip and try to fix the problem, but why this shouldn't happen and apple needs to fix this problem. I hope they do they are great in practically everything else.

I really like the wireless Mighty Mouse that I purchased with my iMac. It has a comfortable feel to it and I love the little multi-directional roller ball. The side buttons are kind of difficult to press, but I don't really use them for anything.

I ran into a problem, however, after about a month of use and never turning it off (it's supposed to go into low power mode during off-time daily use). The icons in the dock would animate when I ran the mouse cursor over them, but otherwise the system was entirely unresponsive to all left and right clicks from the mouse.

At first I thought there was something seriously wrong with my system. But it turns out the batteries in the mouse just needed to be replaced. I wouldn't have originally suspected that, because the cursor would move around normally.

So, keep that in mind. I have extra wired mice around, plus some rechargeable AA's baking at any given time, so I think I'm covered just fine in case that happens again.

I've had my Mighty Mouse for a little over a year now and am still enjoying it. My Mighty Mouse has traveled extensively in checked and carry-on luggage and still works like a champ after about 30,000 miles of turbulence and squishing. The single-physical-button system is intelligent and easily detects when you're trying to right click or left click with almost no confusion.

In my experience, the little scroll ball doesn't get dirty. I don't know what magic they used in engineering that part but it works. It could be how it rubs against the button as it scrolls. That's another aspect of how well designed this device is.

Why three stars?
Occasionally this mouse, and this is true of my roommate's as well, will have the scroll ball stop working. You'll spin the little ball and nothing will happen. This happens with my Macbook Pro, my roommate's Macbook, and my roommate's new iMac. Restarting the mouse (turning it off and then back on) actually doesn't work all the time, but restarting the computer itself seems to work every time. My mouse devours batteries. Every few weeks, sometimes as long as three months it goes battery critical. I don't believe the sleep mode of the mouse conserves battery life as well as other wireless mice as my roommate turns his off regularly when he's not using it and it gets better battery life than mine. When using a Mac Bluetooth keyboard as well as this Bluetooth Mighty Mouse sometimes the mouse will lag with my Macbook Pro, I can't guarantee this is the case with other systems though. I've had just enough little troubles with it to bump it out of the four star category for my review, but it is still a relatively good mouse.