Evoluent Vertical Mouse Optical

by Evoluent

Product Details

Product Manual [195kb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00007L6I5
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: December 5, 2002

Product Description

Evoluent Vertical mouse. Ergonomic mouse. This ergonomic mouse reduse repetitive motion stress by placing the arm in a neutral, "handshake" position. This postion is more natural than a traditional mouse allowing the user to function throughout the day with reduced wrist, arm, shoulder, and neck, pain.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a wonder mouse, January 7, 2004

By 

J. Reich "trendputter" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Evoluent Vertical Mouse Optical (Personal Computers)

My Evoluent has tremendously speeded up my computer use, from being very accurate to having customizable buttons. Although, what I like most is probably the comfort and the button configuration.

From the on-line photographs I didn't see much comfort for the Evoluent, but the comfort is there and is quite an amazing setup for a mouse. I also did not have the opportunity to first try out the Evoluent mouse so I was a little skeptical buying on-line. I didn't think the on-line photos were very convincing, but the reviews were most convincing.

With my old intellimouse I would often have wrist pains and I believe this wrist pain was mostly from my wrist lying flat, as well as tension from clicking and moving. I would feel it that's for sure and it got quite annoying. The Evoluent mouse has dramatically changed that. It's the position. When I hold the Evoluent mouse, my arm and hand are in such a comfortable natural gripping position it is unbelievably comfortable. It's like you are shaking someone's hand, or reaching for a small cup with your fingers. Such a great position. And it eases my finger clicking tension as well. I find now that I can click a lot more without any tension as compared with my Intellimouse. With my Intellimouse my fingers would strain and ache after hours of clicking, not any more.

I also have played a number of computer games and found the Evoluent great with computer games, even first-person shooters and adventure games. No problem here at all, actually I now prefer it better to any other mouse I have owned. With how your hand is positioned I find that I can get very accurate control dexterity as well as pinpoint accuracy. I can click for hours with no pain in my wrist or fingers and my palm does not hurt at all from lying flat.

I found that a good mouse pad was extremely helpful with the Evoluent mouse. With my Evoluent I use a mouse pad with a nice wrist cushion. I find it supports my wrist and the mouse puts my arm in a relaxed and very comfortable position. I also use a keyboard wrist support as well. I found wrist supports invaluable now with all of my computers.

I also learned from several ergonomic websites that a smaller keyboard may also be helpful ergonomically. I found out if you have a smaller keyboard you can easily move your arm to your mouse with much less distance to cover as compared to a large standard keyboard. This would help from overextending your arm at times. I use a Happy Hacking keyboard which is quite small in size and has a custom key layout which makes it much better for hitting certain keys (ctrl, Backspace, Esc) And I can also reach my mouse with the littlest arm movement that is possible with my setup. It really does speed up my writing, editing, and program use and I don't overextend my arm. Very comfortable even for long use.

The buttons & button configuration is outstanding and very customizable, another major plus. There are basically 5 buttons on this mouse

Top Button, Middle Button, Bottom Button, Wheel Button, & Thumb Button.

The Top Button (index finger) cannot be changed. But all the other buttons can be changed. On my mouse I have the Middle Button (middle finger) set up as the classic "right click." The Bottom Button (ring finger) I have setup for "show/hide desktop". And the Thumb Button I have set up as "Backspace." And of course, the Wheel Button for "Auto-Panning"

What a time saver! Getting to my desktop is a breeze and my backspace is easily accessible for fast webpage backup. Of course, the pointer speed and the double click speed can also be adjusted. The wheel button speed can also be adjusted to one/or many lines at a time, or even 1 page at a time. There is also a "button find" customization and a "Loop" customization. "Click Lock" is another where you can enable the mouse to single click and drag a picture or file and then single click again to release it. That's about it for the major software tweaks. There is also a new driver update for Evoluent; this can be found on their website. The driver located on my installation CD was an older version. I had no problem at all with set-up and installation. Also, to get the full capabilities for customization you have to use it as a USB mouse instead of a PS/2 mouse.

Using my mouse almost daily it is definitely worth it weight in clicking gold. I'm extremely happy and don't usually write technology reviews but this little gadget is an exception. If my mouse eventually wears out there is no doubt I will buy another one to replace it. Highly recommended.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good idea, but unreliable and overpriced, April 15, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Evoluent Vertical Mouse Optical (Personal Computers)

There's no doubt that the idea of a mouse oriented in this is a good idea, and helped with a lot of shoulder and arm pain I was having.

But I've had nothing but problems with this thing. After about a month of use, it started to behave erratically. The page scrolls up when I'm scrolling the wheel down (but only sometimes), or I roll just one little tick on the wheel and the page jumps to the bottom. I thought the wheel perhaps needed cleaning, but there is no way to open the mouse, no screws, no obvious place where it could be pried open without breaking it.

The most recent problem is that the mouse turns itself off after about 30 seconds (but only sometimes) -- and I mean completely off. The only way to get it to work is to unplug it from the USB port and plug it back in, which I am now doing at least a dozen times a day.

All of this would be fine if the company offered to replace it, or at least offered some decent technical support. But they are really missing in action here. E-mails go unanswered. A phone call put me into voice mail which was never returned. Obviously the other reviewers here really like this mouse, and I would too, if mine worked.

Buy it if you want, and hope you get one of the good ones.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good alternative to regular mouse, September 29, 2003

By 

Travel & Tech (Northern California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Evoluent Vertical Mouse Optical (Personal Computers)

I bought the vertical mouse after reading a positive review about it. I have repetitive stress injury in my wrist, so any device to minimize this is a boon. The vertical mouse does help keep my wrist in a different position than usual, which is nice. And the optical sensor ensures smooth scrolling without worrying about dust bunnies or stuck rollers.

There were some initial problems with the Evoluent driver which caused the mouse to freeze when I used one of the alternate buttons. This caused me to shelve the mouse for a while. However, not too long ago I saw an updated driver on the Evoluent website. This newer driver seems to have solved whatever problem plagued the first one. The only other complaint is that the rubber pad on the thumb side seems to be peeling off slightly. I guess I can superglue it back on if it comes off.

Gyration makes a wireless mouse which you can wave in the air. Alternating between the vertical mouse, the Gyration mouse, and a trackball mouse helps a lot ergonomically.