Microsoft Touch Mouse Review
Price: 70.25 with
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By
Wing Fat - A Little Clunky
The Microsoft Touch Mouse looks to be Microsoft's answer to the Apple Magic Mouse. I have both Windows and Mac computers and use the Magic Mouse on a daily basis, and was anxious to see how the Touch Mouse would compare.
The upper surface of the Touch Mouse is a touch-sensitive area that allows you to perform mouse functions by sliding and swiping your finger rather than pressing buttons or spinning a mouse wheel. Only the basic left and right click require you to physically press down on the mouse; everything else is controlled with the touch of your finger.
One of the basic and most-used functions is sliding your finger up and down to scroll vertically through a Web page or other document. Unfortunately the Touch Mouse is a little clunky here. Moving your finger does not seem to register right away; I have to slide my finger about 1/2" before the page actually starts scrolling. Even when the page does start scrolling it doesn't feel as fluid and precise as with a regular mouse wheel. The Apple Magic Mouse is smooth as silk when it comes to scrolling; the Touch Mouse needs some work.
Moving forward and back through Web pages (the equivalent of clicking the forward and back buttons in your browser) is usually handled by side buttons on a regular mouse, but to do this with the Touch Mouse you swipe your thumb back and forth. This works perfectly and I LOVE this particular function of the Touch Mouse. This function is configurable to use the left or right thumb, so lefties should have no trouble with this mouse.
There are other touch gestures that let you arrange windows (via a two-finger swipe) and bring up the Windows Instant Viewer (via a three-finger swipe). However, these functions are not configurable. You can turn them on or off, but you can't assign them to some other function. The only functions that are configurable are the left and right mouse click. Also, there is no way to middle-click with this mouse (unless you want to re-assign the right click to middle click).
Like the Apple Magic Mouse, when you "click" the whole body of the mouse moves. The Touch Mouse's click is stiffer than I would like it to be. Since I use a computer so much and am concerned about repetitive strain injuries, this may be a deal-breaker for me.
I like that the Touch Mouse is contoured to fit your hand like a regular mouse. My glossy wood grain desk has given some mouses problems in the past, but the Touch Mouse tracks perfectly without a mouse pad.
I really love the idea of being able to use the touch surface to control mouse functions, but the clunky scrolling performance, stiff clicking, and lack of configuration options mean I'm probably going to return this mouse and go back to my "old fashioned" optical mouse.
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