Customer Reviews

Microsoft Optical Mouse by S+arck - Blue

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The "museum" quality mouse indeed. The color and the shape is awesome. When plugged in, it emits beautiful blue light along the centerline of the mouse. The scroll wheel emits blue light as well. The bottom is sealed so the actual red light optical sensor won't be seen when you use it. It is really the most beautiful mouse I saw in my life, but with some disadvantages:
1. It is slightly larger than I thought
2. The button is so sensitive that you cannot rest your palm on it. The touch is so light and clickable area is so large, you have to be careful so you finger will not hit the right click button. This is really annoying. I hope it provides a way to adjust the "tension" of the buttons, just like the Apple iMac mouse. I feel more confortable using Logitech mouse.

Okay before I get on to the (abundant) bad parts, I will say that this mouse looks really kewl, but that was the only thing that made me buy it. The cheap parts are:
(1) The right/left click buttons cover the whole length of the mouse, so if youre used to REGULAR mice and your hand weighs more than 1 ounce, it will be a while untill you can get used to not clicking things you didnt meen to.
(2) The probably WORST thing about this mouse is the functionality. Whoever programed the OPTICAL MOUSE part is a complete retard. The cursor on screen will comply with what you want to do until it gets bored and moves really fast to a random corner of the screen. I tried to play Halo online and just as I was about to get a kill, my screen started spinning really fast, and by the time I had gained control over my computer, I was dead. Thanks for some quality programming, Stark.
(3) After about three months of frustration in USING MY COMPUTER, this mouse just finally gave up the will to live, shut down, and refused to work. Not even the kewl blue light in the center would turn on when I plugged it in.
So overall, if you NEED an opticall mouse that is cheap, looks kewl, but youll never use it in your life, then this is something to get.

i've owned about 6 different mice up to now and this one is definitely the worst one.
its appearance is OK but it really isn't a pleasure to use it. i really would like to return it had i not thrown away all the packages coming with it.
as another reviewer said the biggest problem is that the mouse cursor once in a while will jump every where on your screen. for typical usage like editing a file, internet surfing, this isn't a big deal. but it really hurts your game playing. this didn't happen when i just started to use it but it got worse very soon and right now the cursor would behave crazily about every 2 minutes. so don't buy this one.

It's a good mouse - it effectively performs as any 2 (3) button + scroll mouse should. And there's no denying, it is very cool aesthetically.

Cons: It's a bit lightweight and cheap feeling. It's a little small for big hands like mine. And I have no idea what its resolution (DPI) is. Does anyone? Microsoft's keeping this key performance figure very, very secret for some reason...

The mouse is certainly very functional. Agreed it does not serve adequately as a paw rest ;) But if you are like me using a gel pad to rest your limbs and using only the fingers on the mouse, it is very useful. And probably the cheapest scroll mouse as well !! The next cheapest I have seen (I am not the most savvy price-shopper though!) is the IBM scroll mouse (palm-restable) available at officemax for $9.
Pros: Nice clean look, no ugly buttons on sides and under and over, optical so no-ball-cleaning, shapely to fit the average hand.
Cons: Too long a cord and ugly cheap connector at the end. They could have skimped a bit on the packaging and built a better usb connector.

This mouse looks very, very nice. Unfortunately, function-wise it leaves much to be desired.

My initial observations (compared to the standard Microsoft wheeled optical mouse I was using previously):

The mouse looks very sleek. I really like how it looks once it's lit up, with a nice blue glow down the middle.

Out of the box, I found that the mouse was very sluggish to use(this was fixed by a little tweaking of the mouse settings).

The scroll wheel is a bit stiff, but this may just be because the mouse is new.

The mouse buttons become "clickable" about a third of the way from the bottom. I was worried from reading others' comments that I wouldn't be able to rest my palm on the mouse without accidently clicking the buttons. To my pleasant surprise, I found that this was not the case at all. I have yet to accidently click any of the buttons with my palm.

I did, however, find that it is *extremely* easy to accidently click the right mouse button with my middle finger. In fact, I average about one accidental click a minute. Very annoying. I'm hoping once I get a bit more used to the mouse this will improve.

This optical mouse WON'T work directly on my desktop, which has a faux wood-grain finish. When I try, the mouse tends to jump all over the screen, making it impossible to use (the Microsoft optical mouse I was using previously had no problems with this!). Very annoying, as now I have to use a mouse mat, which seems to defeat the purpose of an optical mouse!!!

In short, I think the functioning of this mouse leaves a lot to be desired. I regret that I was seduced by this mouse's looks, although I have to admit that I will probably continue to use it because it matches the blue glow of my computer buttons so well! To anyone looking for a decent, cheap wheeled optical mouse I would definitely recommend the basic Microsoft wheeled optical mouse over this one.

I've used this as my primary mouse at work and at home for years, ever since it came out -- ~60-80 hours a week. I've also got repetitive strain injury (RSI) in my fingers, predating my acquiring this mouse.

I tried well over a dozen different mice and trackballs and found this one the best ergonomic, low-strain solution. Key is that the buttons are the entire sides of the mouse, not just the tip. This means you can press using your entire finger and not just the tip, reducing the amount of pressure on your fingertips. The mouse is also bigger than most, helping to keep your hand closer to its natural rest position and away from an arched position that leads to the dreaded carpal tunnel syndrome.

Another plus -- I'm a lefty, and the mouse is definitely ambidextrous.

My biggest complaints: the laser does not function well on very dark (e.g. a black mouse pad) or very bright surfaces (e.g. a white sheet of paper). Frustrating, to say the least. On the wrong surfaces, like a mouse pad with an image, you can hit a dark spot and suddenly your mouse pointer will not register movement, or it will jerk randomly across the screen. This problem is extremely common with optical mice, but is most obvious on this one in particular. Also, the cord is frustrating and gets in the way -- like all mice with tails -- but noticeably, both are starting to wear away where the cord connects to the mouse, exposing wire. It still works, but it's not pretty.

A final note -- more than adequate for even twitch gaming. I've been able to pull off 54-4 on dust_2 in Counter-Strike:Source with this mouse, and so I don't think one of those $80 gaming mice are really necessary. The blue also matches perfectly with the blue glow of my Eclipse keyboard and Dell XPS.

I have the coolermaster wave computer case, so this blue light in a mouse seemed like a great compliment to the case lighting.
BUT- I can't stand how the mouse jumps all over the page, i have found, though, that if I give it a sudden twist of the wrist, it will spring back into a usable state.

This is a very good looking mouse, and a big bargain at $11 (Amazon's current price, may change of course). I wanted a silver optical mouse to match my monitor, speakers, computer. This is silver with a lighted blue line down the middle; the "s+arck" engraved name is essentially invisible, leaving it with a nice clean, uncommercial look. The mouse itself is a nice large size; I have larger hands than average but it's probably good for most any sized hands. Feels comfortable to me, and I've had absolutely no problems with "accidental clicking" as some have experienced. Depends on how you use it, but with just my usual style of "mousing", clicking is easy (right or left) but only happens when I want it to happen.

Drawbacks? Not many, especially at this price. It's more accurate as the ball mouse it replaced, but there may be other mice even more precise (?). It does seem quite accurate to me though, whether pointing-and-clicking, dragging-and-dropping, or highlighting text. And that's just using it on a bare wood desktop. The connection is USB (I have no idea if an adaptor can be used, but none is included), so if you are short on USB ports then it may not be for you. The cord seems about the length of most others, but could be longer. The blue light is cool looking, but I wish I could turn it on and off, rather than having it be on all the time. That's a minor problem of course, but would be great to be able to turn off, for those times you don't want the blue light (such as watching a video in a darkened room). I agree with the reviewer that the packaging appears difficult, but you just need to cut the clear tape along that sides of the box, and the top comes off easily.

I had never heard of designer Philippe Stark, so I wouldn't call him "world famous". But he and Microsoft have created a nice mouse, and Amazon currently has it at a great price.

This mouse looks real cool, and would compliment about any pc workplace...and I was impressed at first...but that was short lived. This mouse only has the "look". 1.) The surface paint started rubbing off after a while, and the grey surface area beneath could be seen. 2.) The cursor is erratic. This is probably the mouse's worst defect... when gaming, the cursor goes all over the screen and is extremely annoying!!!!!
3.) And yes, the mouse's clicking surface is very, very sensitive. I thought Microsoft is capable of making good mice.

But what more could I have expected for 10 bucks???