Customer Reviews

Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse (Black)

5 star:		(257)
4 star:		(135)
3 star:		(60)
2 star:		(38)
1 star:		(38)

 

 

I know my review is long but bear with me as it is will probably make it clear for you on whether or not this product is for you. I've been using this mouse for a little over a month now, i did not want to write a review before others as i wanted to make sure the issues i was having weren't related to a faulty product.

So to start this review i would like to say that in my personal opinion, the mouse is cool, stylish and portable on almost every possible level. This mouse has two positions as shown on the video provided on Amazon, one where it is straight and one where it is bended. When straight the mouse is basically "off" and therefore not using up battery. When it is bended, the mouse goes on and the blue light from Microsoft's blue laser technology goes on.

At the bottom of the mouse there is a magnet right below the battery cover. This magnet is used to hold your receiver. Now this for me is not a very good idea as I'm always worried that the USB receiver will detach itself and get lost if the mouse is not in my bag. However, i must say that it has never happened so far. While talking about the USB receiver, i also want to add that it does not fit into my ASUS N61J series laptop far enough to the point i can feel free to "plug and forget". It sticks out just enough to make me worry about the black plastic part breaking off. If your laptop bag does not hold your laptop tightly on the sides like mine then probably you won't have to worry about the USB receiver breaking while plugged to your laptop.

On to the mouse itself now. Like i said before, it is very stylish. But how does it do in terms of comfort and performance? I would say that comfort is not an issue. i find the fact that the mouse glides quite well on most surfaces and is a good fit for average sized hands. Tracking is good and majority of surfaces won't be a problem to use your mouse on. For those who want to use it on a mattress forget it, it's not going to work. Now for the clicking, I saw another reviewer saying that the click buttons are too stiff. This is indeed quite true, when i got the mouse i hated the click buttons. They are quite stiff and can be irritating at some points. you won't have the usual "CLICK" sound and feeling of a normal computer mouse. This can actually be a deal-breaker for gamers like me. The scroll touch feature however is extremely nice and versatile. You can do quite a bit with it but explaining those functions in my review will just make it too long so I'll stop at saying that scrolling will be a charm with this mouse. Also to replace the scrolling clicks as this mouse is touch scroll, the mouse will sort of vibrate and make a clicking sound which is also pretty cool.

You could say that this mouse actually have five buttons. Three usual Click buttons, left, middle and right as well as a page up and page down buttons when tapping on the top of the touch scroll and the bottom of it for page down. Getting used to it takes a week or so when you work on documents and such so this mouse actually becomes a great tool when working with MS Office or other!

So to sum up:

PROS:
- Stylish
- Versatile tapping for the scroll "pad"
- Great tracking on different surfaces
- Great scrolling technology
- Very portable
- LED light on top of the mouse to let you know if battery is running low or not.
- Sturdy, it doesn't feel like the mouse would ever break when bending and unbending it.
CONS:
- Stiff clicks
- Bit too long receiver although already quite small.
- No receiver holding space on the mouse except for the magnet at the bottom.

So all together, I am happy with my purchase and will definitely purchase the upgrade of it as I'm sure they will fix the clicking stiffness, to which I actually got used to two weeks down the road. The Stiffness is slowly disappearing but is obviously not fast enough!

I know this review was long but at least is a complete description of the features available and experience I had with it.

Length:: 1:29 Mins

This is a remarkably well designed wireless mouse for regular use and in particular travel.

The first time I saw this was when I received it as a gift. Before that, I didn't know it existed.

I checked the product description, reviews, and "gritty" video (supplied by Microsoft) and felt perspective customers might benefit from some additional details.

The only thing that would have been nice was to include a travel case and add a switch to disable the vibration (see the video) as a way to extend battery life. Also, for all the technology it is a bit pricy.

Bottom line is this mouse works and looks great.

BTW, I feel that honest, effective reviews, accompanied by detailed videos, can take the place of first-hand experiences that are often lacking in online shopping. I've always appreciated the help I've received from other reviewers and try to return the favor as best as I can. I hope you found this review helpful and the video at least entertaining. If there was anything you thought was lacking or unclear leave a comment and I'll do what I can to fix it.

My pre-ordered Arc Touch mouse (Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse - Black) arrived yesterday. I have spent the better part of last night and today using it with web browsers, editing manuscripts, Twitter, remote desktop connections, you name it. It just works and works well.

I am currently using it on the dark blue arm of the chair in my living room. My old laser mice could not track on this material but it is not problem for the Arc Touch's blue laser.

One recommendation, download the Intellipoint driver from Microsoft. It allows you to configure the 3 "buttons" (touch points) on the mouse's scroll pad. I currently have a middle double-click set to send a Back command to my browser. Clicking the forward edge of the scroll pad sends a Top of Page command and clicking the trailing edge sends a Bottom of Page. These can all be remapped to your liking.

The biggest advantage is the form-factor. The receiver is a micro-USB receiver, so it barely sticks out of the back of my Lenovo W510 laptop. It never gets in the way and never has to be removed. The mouse itself snaps flat to turn off and easily fits in a shirt pocket, pants pocket or laptop bag. When snapped up into an arc, it turns on and is quite comfortable. I used to use a trackball and was concerned about going from a full-hand sided device to a portable mouse. I find that this isn't a problem and that the mouse is quite comfortable.

I've been using this mouse for about a month now. The design and concept are really cool and the portability is excellent. It's not a very good mouse though, and the ergonomics are really poor.

I sit at a desk all day and use my mouse quite a bit. By late morning my paw starts to get sore and I start to curse the mouse. Not that it's super painful or anything, but a mouse shouldn't make your hand sore.

My biggest complaint is the the clicking action of the left button. The button is very rigid and requires a lot of pressure. The action is a firm depress instead of an actual click. Although it's nice that the "click" is silent, the amount of pressure required actually rocks the mouse to the left a little, which means that the pointer moves slightly. So the accuracy of the clicks is consistently off; it always clicks to the left about 1/8th of an inch (which is a lot).

I thought I was really going to like the scroll button better than a big loud wheel, but the action of the scroll button is very inconsistent. Sometimes it scrolls a few lines, sometimes it senses the movement as a "flick" and scrolls the whole page, and sometimes it senses the movement as a "press" and sticks the scrolling so you have to move the mouse to scroll up & down or side to side.

The design of this mouse is really clever and it would be great for a casual user. But it's not a good device for everyday use at work. Even more so, this is absolutely the wrong mouse for gaming, because the clicks are so imprecise.

So now I'm shopping for a new mouse again. Grrr.

The motion and scrolling work very well. It instantly connects when turned on. Feels nice to hold, although it takes getting used to the empty space underneath.

The only BAD thing is that the buttons are way too stiff. If you press on the very very tip they work ok, but if you press in the middle of the buttons you'll find it takes way too much pressure to get a click. If you look at the pictures you can see why it works like this - the entire top front part of the mouse is a single piece of plastic and pressing the buttons requires it to flex a little, and the further up the button you push, the less leverage you have.
I'm hoping the buttons loosen up after some use.
If it's natural for you to press the tips of the buttons I highly recommend this mouse!

Rather short and sweet review, really.

You won't find another mouse with the outstanding design "wow" factor. Straightening out to turn off is an elegant solution and a magnet to hold the nub receiver is very clean and straightforward.

Bluetrack is a godsend, especially for a portable mouse. I've used this thing on my dark quartz counters, carpet, paper, even a wood table and on the sheets on my bed and it tracks beautifully everywhere.

The size of the mouse is a bit smaller than one might expect. But then going back to that whole portable thing one should not be so surprised I'd expect. I have largish hands and do not find the mouse uncomfortable to use at all.

I have no issues with the buttons. They buttons themselves are located towards the end of the mouse itself. This should be fairly self-explanatory through trial an error. Those who insist on pressing towards the middle of the glossy area or towards the rear and complain of difficult mouse clicks are being a tad simple in my opinion. Sort of like using a hammer but side ways and complaining it doesn't drive the nails so effeciently.

I love the touch scroll. The haptic feedback is cute and annoying a the same time. I do like that it provides some additional feedback about how far you've sent the page scrolling by the frequency of the clicks, etc.

I'm quite pleased with the bit of hardware.

I love this mouse. Despite the uncharasristic stiff click for a Microsoft mouse, I still highly recommend it.

First of all, as a laptop mouse, one of the most important thing is probably to track on any surface, and this one really does. On your pants, couch, blancket, throw; you name it, it'll track on it. I don't know how long this technology has been there, but honestly I find it pretty amazing.

The central strip works very well. While scrolling up and down is cool, the best feature I found is page up/down. That further minimized my need to access the keyboard, and keep my hand from moving around a bit.

The receiver is of nice size, and I personally find it works best when I put it in a USB port closer to the screen of my laptop. It doesn't receive better there -- it receives perfectly in every USB port, but it intrudes less when I move around my laptop. I did first worry about the magnetic holder at the back of the mouse, but after carrying it back and forth a number of times, it seems very safe there. I'll update on this if it starts to separate unintendedly.

To the stiffness of the click. I have used a number of Microsoft mise, and this one has the most stiff left and right clicks. It's hard to explain, but sometimes I feel the stiffness actually makes sense, especially the left click. Right click is more often to be too stiff, especially I set the cursor speed relatively fast. Sometimes the stiffness causes the cursor to move, which is annoying when it happens, though to be fair it doesn't happen that much.

I like the thin design and the foldable body. It brings portability without sacrificing the nice feeling of holding it. I personally don't have the habbit to use the extra bottoms other than the main three, so the lack of those is completely a non-issue for me, though I do think Microsoft might be able to find a way to put those in if there are such demands.

Installation of a Microsoft mouse on Windows 7 machines really takes no effort. Plug it in, wait couple seconds, and then it's ready.

My impression on this mouse makes me want to buy another one, one to use at work and one to use at home, though it sort of defeats the purpose of buying a portable one at the first place. I'm still struggling on this, but you can see I really enjoy having it.

I'm so glad I didn't listen to all the reviews saying the buttons are too hard to click, because they're all over-exaggerating. The mouse is awesome and even works on my glass table! Couldn't ask for a better product to compliment my netbook. I also like the tactile feedback the scroll pad gives.

took a while to get used to middle-clicking with it, but after two or three days I'm a middle-clicking ninja with the thing. Microsoft obviously didn't release drivers for Linux or Mac OS, but all 5 buttons of the mosue (right and left clicks and the 3 middle clicking options) work as expected; they simply can't be customized

the amount of lines it scrolls can be too high (4 or more) in Linux; this is usually fixed by removing the USB connector and re-inserting it, or even inserting it for a cuple of seconds on a Windows machine then back to Linux : )

I'm a professional who works with high-end CAD systems on a semi-daily basis. My issue with regular mice is that I also spend a good portion of my time traveling and the bulk of carrying around what usually amounts to a tennis-ball sized device is troublesome.

So, I grabbed a Microsoft Arc Touch mouse when they were on sale around the holidays just to see how it worked for me.

Pros:

1) It folds flat, of course. Not only is it a neat visual gimmick, but it is actually amazingly functional since it takes up hardly any space in its flattened state. Way, way, way better than my previous "travel" mice.
2) The tracking is accurate on all of the surfaces I've tried it on thus far. I haven't tried the ever-difficult glass table, but I really don't see ever having to deal with that situation anyway.
3) Even without the fold-flat factor, it's a stylish looking mouse. The gloss black button area tends to get fingerprints and smudges, but no more than would be expected.
4) The scroll wheel function is actually a lot better than I expected. It's almost like having one of the newer Logitech mice with the free-scroll wheels but better. If you haven't tried one, you'll be pleasantly surprised by the "click, click, click" feedback you get while scrolling.

Cons:

1) I have large hands, and this is by no means the most ergonomic mouse I've ever used. It sounds anti-productive but I almost wish they'd made it both wider and longer. At least, I wish they'd made it a bit longer so that in the folded position, the hump would be a bit higher and the back of the mouse would reach back a bit farther. I just find that it sort of gets lost in my hand and I have to contort my fingers a bit to click the buttons without moving the mouse. Making it just about 1cm longer front-to-back in the folded state seems like it would solve that for me. Maybe they need a Small and Large sized model...
2) As a CAD user, the middle mouse button is of the utmost importance. Most users rarely ever use it and don't care, but the current trend of foregoing the middle mouse button just kills us CAD users. There is, in fact, a middle mouse button on the Arc Touch, but it's basically a gesture rather than an actual button. You perform a Touch-Touch-Hold in the middle of the scroll-wheel area. This works on occasion, but more often than not, it doesn't. I often find that when scrolling I accidentally trigger the middle mouse button, or that when I want to trigger the middle mouse button it takes several tries to touch-touch-hold in the right spot for it to register. If you need a middle mouse button on a consistent basis, you'll probably wish to look elsewhere.

Recommendations:

If Microsoft wishes to refine this design for CAD users and those with larger hands, I would suggest the following...

1) There is an area on the side of the front half where your thumb rests. Move the scroll area over there to allow the thumb to do the scrolling and give us an actual middle mouse button. That would solve the click-hold problems that the mouse has now, and would make all of us who use the middle button extremely happy. Alternately, if they gave me the ability in software to turn off the scroll wheel in certain applications and to therefore register any touch as a middle mouse click, that would work too. Then when I'm in CAD I wouldn't be scrolling and it would just work like a touch sensitive button.
2) Either make a model just a bit larger, or just make the next iteration a bit larger. It doesn't have to be much, but when clicking the buttons, the back of the mouse needs to be in contact with the palm of the hand otherwise the mouse will move. My hands are large enough that this takes some non-ergonomic contortions.

Conclusion:

All-in-all, I'm keeping the Microsoft Arc Touch mouse for travel. The ability to fold flat overcomes the other issues for me, and when I'm traveling I'm more often in Word, Excel, or Outlook than I am in my CAD software, so for travel it's going in my bag. However, when I'm at my desk in the office or at home, I'll be using something with an actual middle-mouse button that fits my hand a bit better...