Werks good... Support's bad
Written: Mar 07 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Novelty functionality and ergonomically comfortable; good optical response and gyro-tracking
Cons: Poor customer service; buttons can be cumbersome; gyro may require practice on small clickable areas
The Bottom Line: The functionality and novelty of the GP110 Gyration Mouse is up to par, but the short-lived battery life and poor customer support didn't have me jumping with joyous gyrations.
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| yuenp's Full Review: Gyration Ultra Cordless Optical (GP110-007) Mouse |
I purchased this mouse about a month ago and have had a mixed bag of experiences so far:
After a month's time, the battery seems to be failling. After charging the mouse for 10 hours, the mouse seems to work fine for about 2-3 minutes and then shuts itself off. If I take out the battery and replace it, the mouse turns back on again, but then immediately shuts itself off.
This problem seems to have come on very suddenly and I'm not sure if its the mouse' fault or the battery's.
I tried calling customer support, but it was thirty minutes before their offices were supposed to close and they had already closed up shop for the day.
Following that frustrating event, I tried to send customer support an email via their website, but due to poor programming, the site crashed, giving me a bunch of server gobbly-guk and wouldn't let my email through. (Nothing really tops off a poor experience and motivates someone to write a product-review more than that... so please understand that my experience is my own and may not reflect the avereage experience of others.)
Poor experience and customer service aside, for the few weeks that I was able to use the mouse, it seemed to perform well.
Ergonomically, it fits comfortably in an average-sized hand, whether on the table or when using it as a gyro-mouse.
The gyro-mouse seems to respond well, but is very sensitive. It takes some practice to use. Centering the cursor on a small clickable area (like specific words/lines of text, mp3 or DVD player buttons) can be tricky and frustrating.
The technology works best for presentation-based applications with large buttons/clickable areas and large displays. One would certainly not want to try to surf the web or do any extensive amount of work with it as a gyro-mouse.
As a table-top mouse, it works well. As an Interactive Designer, I work on a dual-panel display and frequently need to lift the mouse and replace it on the table-top when going from screen to screen. Due to the shape and function of the mouse' design, this is easy to do, but frequently, I found that the primary and secondary buttons are so large (so you can click them with your thumb like a tv remote when holding the mouse in your hand in gyro-mode) that I frequently clicked them by accident just by lifting up the mouse to reposition it. This can really have adverse affects when you're working with sensitive timeline or graphical tool-based applications like Flash and Photoshop.
Gyration prescribes the mouse as having a 10-hour battery life, which means that you will need to charge it every night. For some of us who drink too much workahol, you'll find that the mouse frequently ends up dying, just as you're approaching deadline in the wee hours of the morning after pulling an all-nighter.
Also, for those of you with spouses and children who are likely to forget to put the mouse back on the charger after use, you'll frequently return to the computer the next day to find that the mouse is completely dead.
I resorted to having an alternate standby wireless mouse for such emergency occasions, but eventually went back to a standard wired mouse to save myself all the hassle and irritation of dead batteries in both mice.
Overall, I found the functionality and novelty of the GP110 Gyration Mouse to be up to par, but the short-lived battery life and poor customer support didn't have me jumping with joyous gyrations of my own.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 29.99
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Epinions.com ID:
yuenp
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Location: Toledo, OH, USA
Reviews written: 15
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
Web Developer.
Enjoys video games.
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