My experience with the latest mouse from Microsoft motivated me to give Logitech a chance, so I picked up the Logitech MX 700 Cordless Optical Mouse. I vaguely remember that my past experiences with Logitech mice were poor, but it has been a long time, so they deserve another chance. Fortunately for me and them, I really like this mouse!

What’s not wrong with this mouse? Well, everything I mentioned about the Microsoft mouse! The scroll wheel clicks traditionally, doesn’t turn when brushed against, and is easy to click. The side buttons are pretty easy to click with my thumb, and though they are a little small, they stick out nicely so that they’re easy to find without looking. The software has great support for changing the button assignments, including the ability to set a mouse button to any keystroke combination.

As with all cordless mice, it uses batteries, which are a minor pain to replace every so often. Not so with this mouse, though; it has a recharging cradle!

Another cool feature of this mouse is the extra buttons; not only are there two side buttons, but there are “cruise control” buttons above and below the scroll wheel, and a “window-switching” button below those. As you click and hold a “cruise control” button, the window under the mouse cursor is quickly scrolled up or down. The “window-switching” button displays a little window that makes it easy to switch among applications. The best part is that they’re easy to click intentionally and hard to click accidentally!

I will admit that the orientation has taken me a little getting used to, but it doesn’t feel nearly as awkward as the Microsoft mouse, and I’m confident that I’ll be perfectly comfortable with it soon. (Unfortunately, there’s no software support for adjusting the orientation.)

All in all, I’d say that this is a great mouse. Read on if you’re interested in how (and why) I changed the software settings.

I didn’t change the left and right mouse buttons, of course, but I did change almost everything else. The middle button is assigned by default to Universal Scroll, which doesn’t work well enough for me to use, so I just assigned it to Middle Button. This ensures that all of my applications will work as expected – particularly Mozilla Firefox, which uses middle-click to open links in a new tab. Applications that natively support middle-click scrolling continue to do so.

I changed the big side button to double-click. I don’t really have any trouble with the dexterity required to double-click, but it’s still a small reduction in effort. Double-click is generally a different function than single-click, so it makes sense for it to have its own button, especially when I have so many to spare!

The little side button I changed to the Ctrl key. It’s great for one-handed multiple selection!

I didn’t end up liking the “cruise control” feature, so I changed the button assignments. I changed the top button to “Alt+F4” (which I found to work better than “Close Application”) to make it easy to close the active window. It's easier than clicking the little X, and I close a lot of windows in a day! I changed the bottom button to “Minimize” and the “window-switching” button to “Minimize All”.

I changed the scrolling size of the scroll wheel to the traditional 3 lines. The default, 1 line, is just too slow for my taste.

I found that the mouse cursor moved a little too quickly for me with the default motion settings, so I slowed the cursor way down and used “low” acceleration.

That’s it for the settings. Hopefully this will be a mouse I can use for years to come.

Update: I changed my button assignments, so I thought I'd reflect that here.

Okay, twice now I've tried to love Microsoft's latest mouse, the Wireless IntelliMouse Explorer. My old tried-and-true Microsoft mouse is no longer working properly, so I need a new mouse. Unfortunately, I simply can't bring myself to use the Microsoft mouse, and find myself preferring the chintzy Logitech mouse that I'm using as a stopgap. Why, you ask? Well:

• The scroll wheel moves smoothly instead of at intervals. This takes some getting used to, but the worst part is that, if you even brush the wheel with your finger, you'll find that you've scrolled your window a little bit.
• The scroll wheel is nearly impossible to click. I like using the scroll wheel as a third mouse button, but this mouse makes that almost impossible. Even if I did have the finger strength to get the wheel clicked, the previous problem strikes – it is truly impossible to click the scroll wheel without doing a bit of scrolling at the same time! Not good for middle-clicking links on a Web page, that's for sure.
• The horizontal scrolling aspect of the scroll wheel is pure hype, at least for now. It's hard to do, it scrolls unbearably slowly, when it works, and configuration doesn't seem to help a bit. And, again, any operation near the scroll wheel is going to cause some vertical scrolling whether you like it or not.
• The orientation is terrible, at least the way I hold a mouse. When I move this cheap Logitech mouse from side-to-side, the mouse cursor stays on a pretty even horizontal. When I do the same with the Microsoft mouse, I can't keep the mouse cursor on a horizontal line to save my life. I suppose after a few weeks I could teach myself to contort my wrist such that it would work, but considering I don't have any trouble with any other mouse I've found, I don't think the problem is me.
• The mouse buttons on the side are very difficult to press with my thumb; I have to contort my hand unnaturally to hit either of them.
• Also, the mouse buttons on the side are too small. How I miss my original IntelliMouse Optical, with its nice, big side buttons...
• Last, but certainly not least, the new mouse only works with IntelliMouse 5.0 driver software, which is significantly inferior to the previous version, IntelliMouse 4.12. Specifically:
  • You can no longer change the orientation. This would help solve the orientation problem, but it can't be done!
  • There are fewer options for button assignment. Specifically, I like to assign the little side button to the Ctrl key; I guess Microsoft decided I didn't need that feature any more.

Don't even get me started on the new Microsoft keyboards. I'm just thankful that they still sell the Microsoft Natural Keyboard Elite.