Opening the Box
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One of the hardest products to actually get out of its packaging I've come across. The package designers have obviously studied Apple's sleek look, but even getting the install disk unstuck from the underside of the interior box took more effort than it should!
Installing the Software (MAC users pay attention!)
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The install disk is Windows only, so I had to hunt through the documentation for how one obtains the Mac version of Logitech's "SetPoint" software. It's on the upper left of page 3 in 4 point type, so if you don't have eagle-eye vision, you may need to get someone to read the URL to you. Unfortunately, that URL isn't going to help you, 'cause it doesn't work. Instead, you have to go to Logitech's web site, click the "downloads" menu and navigate through a series of screens to get to the right place to download the OSX version. Installation takes a minute or so and does require restart.
Setting up the Mouse
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The wireless receiver plugs into any USB port and is nice and small. It's also black, which means that it's easily lost... While I was installing the software I inadvertently knocked it to the floor with a cord (I know, ironic) and it took me half an hour to find it because it was nicely concealed in some shadows. The mouse does come with its own charger, which is a two-edged sword. One the one hand, it's nice not to have to keep a supply of batteries on hand and always run out at the most inconvenient time. On the other hand, it's another thing to have plugged in somewhere, and if you're desk is as cluttered as mine, that's a hassle (and yes, I've knocked it the floor once already too). In terms of battery life, it seems pretty good. I've used the mouse for the last three days and left it on overnight without any decrease in the number of bars on the indicator.
Using the Mouse
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Once the mouse was all charged up, I just started playing with it as is right out of the box. I immediately noticed some strange performance from the main scrollwheel, which allows you scroll vertically through documents. I had to go into the preferences right away to tweak the settings to speed it up. Actually, this was good, because it showed me just how customizable most of the buttons and settings are. For example, it didn't occur to me that I could set up different behaviors for different programs. This takes a good deal of experimentation and trial and error, but is well worth it for the heavy user. I'm a graphic designer and use Creative Suite (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator), as well as Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Word, Excel, Safari, Acrobat, etc. and I think that once the learning curve is over, the mouse will help me do stuff faster.
Some Features
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A lot of people seem hyped on the main scrollwheerl/flyweel. It's nice and smooth and all, but it's not going to change your life. You can also tilt it side to side to scroll horizontally in a wide document, but I find that I often accidentally scroll up and down when I do this as well. Just above it is a small button which, when pressed with a word or phrase highlighted, will initiate a seach based on that term. You can set it to use the Spotlight, Finder, Google, Yahoo, Sherlock, or any search engine you specify. That's pretty cool and is a feature I will definitely use a lot. There are also two buttons just above the thumb groove which I've used mainly to flip back and forward between web pages, but haven't set to do much else yet. The one feature I'm not a fan of is the scroll wheel in the thumb groove. It allows one to toggle between open applications. While this should be great, since I often have at least five applications running at once, I find that it's far to easy to accidentally activate and may end up disabling it (which is something you can do for all the features).
Ergonomics
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This thing feels great. It fits the hand nicely and has a perfectly sized thumb groove and is weighted just right (I find most mouses to be too light). Eveyone in my office who checked it out really liked it too except for one woman with smallish hands who found it a bit cumbersome and the left-handed people who felt, well.... left out. So while it's perfect for an average size person like me, I can imagine that people with especially large or small hands won't be able to use all the features as easily.
Overall?
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Having spent the last several days playing with this new mouse on my G5 workstation at the office and my G4 laptop at home I'd give it an overall thumbs up. It's annoying to have to hunt for the Mac install software, but once over that, it's almost all good. It's definitely a mouse for the heavy user, someone like my mom, who's not the most proficient computer user to start with would find herself constantly accidentally hitting features and getting confused. It's pricey, but if you can get your company to pay for it, why not?