How important is a mouse? Would any mouse do? Would any keyboard do? Chance are if i were to replace either on you, you wouldn’t be happy because the replacements would feel different and that would mess up the way you operate…
Change
For the past 6 months or so my old logitech mouse was acting up. It wasn’t tracking properly on wood / glass / plastic / anything. Eventually i discovered that it would track perfectly on a purple plastic A4 folder for some reason so that became my temporary mouse-mat. Over the past couple of weeks though i noticed it was becoming a bit unstable on that so i decided to get a new mouse… the reason why i didn’t get a new mouse as soon as the old one started playing up was simple – i had gotten so used to the old mouse, that a change in size / feel / button combinations would really mess up my work flow.
With dual monitors, a programmable mouse is very important. I flick windows from one monitor to the next with my mouse and also do all my copy / pasting with my mouse. It also controls the volume of my speakers. So replacing my old mouse with something that *didn’t* have those features wasn’t something i was willing to do. There’s a trend these days for mice to be small… mini mice. The problem for me is that i have a mini mouse, in fact it works perfectly and it has programmable buttons. But the position of those buttons isn’t ‘natural’ to me so it slows down my workflow when using it. Plus i prefer bigger mice when working with a desktop, i find that my hand is less ‘arced’ when using a full size mouse, so there’s less stress on my wrist as i can relax it a bit more.
New kid in town
After much investigation i found that the Logitech m510 was the closest replacement to my old mouse (which was bought as part of a keyboard package).
Similar size, similar location of buttons, same Logitech software i’m used to. Everything i back to the way it should be… smooth movement, smooth scrolling, no frustration. However, it’s amazing how we’ll do anything to avoid change, simply to save ourselves the hassle and time of learning something new. It even took me a while get used to the idea of a new mouse. Thankfully my ‘new’ mouse isn’t all that different from my last one so the change is minimal.
Plastic packaging shoutout
I hate plastic packaging.. the kind that is welded together and can only be opened with a knife. Not only is it frustrating to open, it’s bloody sharp & dangerous too. It should be banned as it’s a lazy way for manufacturers to package stuff and benefits nobody only manufacturers. I was expecting to have to cut open my new mouse package with a knife when i flicked it over and discovered they had a perforated edges at the back of the package along with a convenient ‘open here’ slot. No knives, no slitting your fingers open on sharp plastic. The very fact this surprised me and is worthy of mentioning is sad – this is the way all packaging should be… it’s stuff we should be able to take for granted but far too often the packaging isn’t thought about and it’s not seen as important by manufacturers. Will it make or break my decision to buy something? No. But Logitech have earned themselves a bit more respect from me because of it…
