Buck-O said:
I think the Razer would be best suited for lefties. Thanks to its semetrical design. It offers left hand gamers an opportunity to have a quality high DPI fragging mouse. And thats about where my recemendations of the Razor end.
For starters, Im really not a fan of semetrical mice. I just dont find them confortable over long gaming sesions. And ive felt that way since my first Logitech Mouseman 3-Button mouse back in the Dawango Doom II days. And i like the way the 5x series case from Logitech fills my hand without lifting my hand off the mousing surface to do so. ALong the same line, as a guy with large hands, the copperhead feels small and to low profile in my hand, and really makes my wrist hurt useing it for a long gaming sesion. Plus ive never been a fan of Razors hyper sensitive buttons. They just dont do it for me. I like a good authoritative click. Helps remove accidental railgun firings in the heat of battle.
Yep, I have been 'test driving' this mouse and the symmetrical nature is a HUGE, HUGE drawback. Although it is reasonably comfortable (esp since I'm used to using a symmetrical mouse at work), it is crap compared to a true righty mouse. Since about half of the lefties I know mouse right handed, I don't know why companies even bother with symmetrical mice. (If you're a righty, try mousing lefty for a night, it's honestly not that hard if you reverse the buttons and once you get used to the fact that your 'skew factor' is reversed. Do it for a week and it will be second nature. I broke my right collarbone a few years ago and had to mouse lefty, after a couple days I didn't even notice anymore)
Your comment really hits home because my current mouse *IS* in fact the original Mouseman Wheel that I pulled out of my junk drawer after breaking my last optical in a fit of rage. When I hooked it up I was friggen AMAZED at how good that old mouse felt (especially the PERFECT side button) and have been using it for months as even though it is a mechanical mouse. I have yet to see a mouse as well designed and can't fathom why all the new mice are so crap compared to this old design. I've bought and returned 3-4 mice since I switched to the mouseman but now I *really* need a new one as my wheel has finally lost 100% of its 'click' and is completely smooth scrolling like the idiotic MS mice.
Buck-O said:
The other thing i dont like about the razer is the lack of weight. Some people prefer this, i on the other hand prefer a heavier weighted mouse. The G5 offers the best of both worlds with its removable weight tray (also known as the battery slot on the wireless version) with customizable weighting. I can then weight the mouse so that its flickable to my tastes. A GREAT feature that im slightly disappointed no one has implimented sooner.
Hmm, I also prefer a heavier mouse, but don't find it that big a deal. But this G5 is intriguing me...
Buck-O said:
Also, i can do without the corny LED lighting of the razor. Yeah, the G5 has some base lights in the weight tray, and the little LED display up top, but neither of them are any mroe distracting then the rear light on an MS Explorer mouse, or the LED underlighting of typical optical mice. Personally I find the movement of the blue light in my lower right peripherial vision to be distracting at best, and downright nausiating in a quick multiplayer game of Q4 where is straking all over my vision, and drawing my eyes tword it (another reason why i hate VW dash boards with their blue back lighting AMBER FOOS!)
Yeah, the light isn't doing anything, but with a laser you have to do something to up the 'cool' factor since you don't get the wow of a visible optical beam. The 'always on' thing had me worried for a bit since my desk is next to my bed but then I realized, "Oh, non-visible laser spectrum on the tracker, smoove!" I have the 'red' mouse and it's not bad at night. My LED alarm clock is much brighter.
Buck-O said:
Plus, i may be a little biased tword the G5 becuase im a former MX510 user. And i really like the design of that mouse. ANd im glad that Logitech took the time to improve the design to make it better.
Little things like removing the "forward" navigation button on the thumb well, i never really used it. But i discovered alot of games wouldent map to it natively. So its no loss to me. THey also removed the application button from teh top of the mouse, and added side scrolling to the mouse wheel. Although one thing i do really miss are the "cruise" buttons for and aft of the scroll wheel. Althogh they couldent be used in gaming...so i suppose the loss isnt terribly great for a hardcore gamer, but i liked to use them when browsing.
Ok, I am looking for a new mouse (still!) and the G5 is intriguing, but I tried the 510 and have to say I HATED it. It was too small, the smallish side buttons were hard to hit, the mousewheel was crap to use as a button (tho its scrolling was *by far* the best I have ever used in terms of accuracy). I never used the tiny top buttons as they were too small for me and not easy to hit for my hand position.
So here's what I'm looking for, if anybody has any suggestions please give them:
A large, right handed design. At the very least, main buttons that can be clicked even if you let the tips of your fingers hang over the front edge of the mouse (ie: the MX 1000 and 510 are horrid in this regard since the main buttons are recessed so you cant click by pushing down on the front edge).
A good, clicky, scroll wheel that is close to the front of the mouse, and it easy to use as a button without being super careful about accidently scrolling. The 510 scroll wheel was great for accuracy (need 3 clicks to get to the weapon / quickbar / whatever you need to get to? no problem, you'll be able to achieve the right number of clicks with extreme quickness and 99% accuracy after just a day or two of using the mouse). However, the 510 scroll wheel was not easy for me to reach, and was recessed too much to use as a button effectively. Side scrolling would be a large bonus IF everything else is good. Two more easy to hit buttons is never a bad thing.
Good side buttons on the thumb side. My PERFECT design (remember, this is a large, righty mouse) would have 3 buttons on the thumb side, stacked VERTICALLY. The modern 2 button horizontal layout boggles my mind as the thumb naturally moves in the opposite direction and I'd much rather simply move my thumb a tiny bit up or down and press with whatever part of my thumb is comfortable for me than have to either bend my thumb or do a non intuitive 'back click' determine which button I want. I 'hold' the mouse with the base of my hand so accidently clicking a thumb button while mousing isn't a problem and in my pefect design my thumb would very lighly rest on the middle button and allow me to easily hit that button or the upper / lower ones.
(I could go on about this for hours, but on a quick note, another modern thing that I very much dislike is the 4 button diamond layout for gamepad buttons. The 6 button layout, while separating the buttons into 3 'primary' and 3 'secondary' buttons in a way, is simply superior as one's thumb naturally moves along the three buttons in a row much more easily than moving around a diamond. But the console wars ended up going for 'cool looking' controllers in order to market the units and now the PC gamepads have gone along with the diamond design. With the XBox controller our fate was sealed and it's hilarious because MS went with the diamond but at the same time acknoledged the superiority of the 6 button layout by including the black / white buttons. But they couldn't line up these buttons perfectly with the others beacuse that would make it TOO obvious that the 3x2 layout is better and the controller was designed for looks so they had to misalign the B/W and make them tiny and pretend that they were like teritary bonus buttons even though every game proceeded to use them for important functions. Dammit, I could punch somebody in the face right now!)
A right side button is a bonus. But it has to be in the right spot and quite large in order to accomidate the less accurate nature of using one's pinky / ring fingers and the fact that the placement of said fingers is probably what varies the most among different people. If the button is in a place where I can hit it without changing how I hold the mouse I certainly will use it for something non essential... and eventually learn to hit it well enough to upgrade what I bind it to.. and eventually want a second button over there.
But it HAS to be in the right place! The Copperhead's 2 right side buttons are absolutely useless to me due to the way I hold the mouse. For me, a button shaped / positioned like the orginal MM Wheel side button would be perfect although it should take a lot less pressure to click. (If you haven't used the orginal MMW, its side button is along the bottom edge of the mouse about 2/5 of the way from the front of the mouse, and is about 1.5 inches long and half an inch high. It is truly the greatest side button of all time)
And umm... good mousing precision, obviously.
I have been looking for a new mouse for almost A YEAR now, and my current (8 year old!) mouse is now unusable due to wear and tear, so please, suggestions are welcome!
