Nice first-generation effort, but flawed
Written: Feb 06 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Smooth mousing, no ball, no rollers to clean
Cons: Too big. Right-handed only. Forward/back buttons not intuitive.
The Bottom Line: Base is too big, browser forward/back buttons in the wrong places. Get the Intellimouse Optical instead
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| howardh's Full Review: Microsoft Intelli Explorer (B75-00001) Mouse |
Let me preface this by saying that I am extremely touchy about my mouse. I used to work at Microsoft, so I've tried just about every version of MS hardware around. When they introduced the wheel on the original Intellimouse, I jumped for joy -- no more diving for scrollbars. When they came out with the Intellimouse Pro, my hand felt like it had a properly-shaped partner. Ergonomic bliss.
But there's a bad side to my touchiness. Crud on mouse rollers drives me batty. When I go to someone else's computer and find a bumpy mouse, I'm the guy who's got it open and is cleaning off the rollers before you can say "overly sensitive".
I thought that the Intellimouse Explorer would be a mouse made in heaven for me: smooth optical scrolling, ergonomic wedge shape that fits the curve of my hand, plus two more buttons, which map to forward and back in the browser. What could be better?
Lots.
Shape & Size
I loved its agressively-curved predecessor. Unfortunately with the Explorer Microsoft went for a more smooshed, less rakish profile and a relatively-larger base. This puppy is big and wide.
I have relatively large hands, but it never felt completely "right" to me.
Buttons & Wheels
We've got these in abundance. Five buttons and a wheel, in fact. One each for the index and middle fingers (left and right buttons, historically). The middle finger has the now-nearly-indispensable scroll wheel as well. You can also click and hold the wheel as a middle button for panning around on a page. Then your thumb gets into the action: it's got two buttons of its own. By default, these work (front to back) as forward and back in your browser.
The "classic" left and right buttons slope down nearly to the front of the mouse. They require only a very light touch. Sometimes I found that this caused a problem with unintended clicks. Also, the plastic seemed a tad flimsy. I never had a problem, but I wouldn't want to drop anything on those buttons. The rest of the mouse is well-constructed, though.
The wheel is great. Microsoft added ridges to the surface of the wheel, which makes it roll with more assurance. It feels good.
This mouse really falls down on the forward/back buttons. Back works just fine. It's the larger of the two and sits at your thumb's natural resting place. The smaller forward button sits just in front of the back button. It requires an unnatural reach to hit. Plus, for me, it sat in an unintuitive position. My hand expected a button on the other side for forward. Thus, I found myself hitting the right button with my ring finger periodically. You may be able to train yourself to hit the right button, but I couldn't
Recommendations
Now I have an Intellimouse Optical. It's smaller, symmetrical, and has forward and back buttons on either side of the mouse body -- where God intended!
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 59
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Epinions.com ID:
howardh
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Member: Howard Hansen
Location: Seattle, WA
Reviews written: 16
Trusted by: 8 members
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