Favorite mice

I love those cheapo microsoft USB optical mice, I've had several over the years and have a black one now. Two buttons and a scrollwheel as a third, comfortable and works great. On laptops I prefer the trackpoint but can make do with trackpads. I have a logitech trackball that I like, one that you use your fingers on, I have an ADB thumb one too but I hate it. The only mice I really hate fall into one of three categories: jumpy tracking, too small, or a scroll wheel that doesn't have stops in it (those smooth ones).

I really like the Logitech MX518i gaming mouse. Its corded so its lightweight and has instantaneous response, 1800dpi so it tracks well over any surface, its buttons are well placed and it feels well built. My other favorite is my Razer Lachesis, but to be honest aside from its, frankly crazy, 4000dpi tracking and big buttons, it has a more "sleek" body which i find uncomfortable to use after an extended period of time.

Other than that I just use my MBP's trackpad.

Dynex WOM-2

some cheap Ativia mouse from Office Depot

Apple Pro Mouse

iBook Clamshell track pad

Logitech Trackball ADB

those track points that look like an eraser stuck in the keyboard.

New macbook buttonless track pads/

I love the current IBM two-button scroll mouse (with the red wheel). I use one on my MacBook and may buy a few more to have as spares since IBM mice may be a thing of the past soon. This is especially true for someone who hates the Mighty Mouse with a passion--I'm going to need another IBM mouse if I get a new Mac.

The old Logitech optical mice circa 1999-2000 (MouseMan) were also quite good. I have one with a scroll wheel. Some of the newer Logitechs are also quite nice but I don't like the ones that are designed for one hand or the other. I am ambidextrous and have a tendency to change the hand I use my mouse with depending on what I have on my desk at the moment.

Microsoft has some decent models out now too but I really haven't gotten a chance to use many of them. I did get a chance to use a basic Microsoft for a few days not long ago and found it comfortable.

The ProMouse isn't bad but I've found the cords to be prone to shorting out. My original black ProMouse no longer functions because of this issue. (I even have the original box for it; bought it with a memory upgrade for my Clamshell in 2001). I do like the hockey puck, especially the one with the recess on the button.

As for older mice, I like the early 1990s IBM two-button, the original Microsoft mice, the original Apple ADB mouse, and the Mouse IIc.

My favorite trackball is the one that came on the PowerBook 1xx series. My preferred trackpads are found on the current MacBook, the Clamshell, and most recent Thinkpads.

yeah... My Pro Mouse shorted out, too. :'(

Kensington Orbit FTW!

Add my Pro Mouse to that death toll. (...but it looked so cool!)

I'll go ahead and be the oddball and admit that I like the mighty mouse; so long as I don't use it with dirty hands, it's fine. If I use it with dirty hands, then the scrollball gets jammed up in a moment, but a quick jet of compressed air makes it happy again. Four buttons and 360-degree scrolling rocks

That said, I do like my black Pro Mouse a great deal, and I have yet to use a lousy Logitech mouse.

Favourites: my Kensington Turbo Mouse and trackpoints.

I cannot stand trackpads. The decent ones are okay (e.g. PowerBooks), but there are a lot of shitty ones out there too.

For mice proper, my tastes aren't terribly fashionable. I did like the hockey puck mouse, and the old boxy Apple mice.

Nothing beats a Turbo Mouse 4.0. I also like the original "made in USA" ADB mouse with the heavy ball.

My favorite is a no-name mouse I got in some computer store in Japan, that has blue LED to go with the red laser. It's small and very zippy. I got a Mighty Mouse with my new iMac but it's so big and sluggish I went right back to the little red and blue one.

I,too, like the puckmouse, if they made one with two buttons and a scroll, it would please me.

Apple never made a Laser Mouse, did they?

I still use a Mighty Mouse myself, with a plain old Logitech/Dell for games.

My favorite is a no-name mouse I got in some computer store in Japan, that has blue LED to go with the red laser. It's small and very zippy. I got a Mighty Mouse with my new iMac but it's so big and sluggish I went right back to the little red and blue one.
I,too, like the puckmouse, if they made one with two buttons and a scroll, it would please me.

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Is this the no name mouse?

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3631/3467709898_3d934e4942_o.jpg

Ignore the stoned eye, one opens more then the other but my arm covered the good eye.

I'm using a Kensington 2 button with scroll wheel mouse right now. Standard USB optical deal. Works fine I guess.

I put more stock in the keyboard I use. Tactile Pro all the way; Model M on a PC, Extended or Extended II on an ADB Mac.

I use the trackpoint on all three of my ThinkPads, plus the trackpoint on the external UltraNav USB keyboard I got to use with flatdell and with my main thinkpad when it's sitting on the dock.

Beyond that, the mighty mouse is okay for Macs, I have a lenovo bluetooth mouse, and I really appreciate the slightly older style Dell mouse, the one they used from about 2004/2005 to 2008. I've got two of them (one optical and one not.) and haven't ever had problems with them.

Wacom tablets are great, but still pretty expensive, especially if you don't do much actual work with graphics. In my experience it makes photoshop work go more easily but it's not really necessary, unless you're actually using photoshop/flash/illustrator/another-graphics-app as a medium for drawing.

The old Logitech optical mice circa 1999-2000 (MouseMan) were also quite good. I have one with a scroll wheel. Some of the newer Logitechs are also quite nice but I don't like the ones that are designed for one hand or the other. I am ambidextrous and have a tendency to change the hand I use my mouse with depending on what I have on my desk at the moment.

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I had an old, blue MouseMan Wheel which I absolutely loved, but I found that under rapid movement it wasn't precise enough, the pointer would jump all around the screen erratically. If it had a higher resolution sensor I probably would have never gotten rid of it.

Apple never made a Laser Mouse, did they?
I still use a Mighty Mouse myself, with a plain old Logitech/Dell for games.

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It's the mouse that came w/ the eMac! It is basicly a white Apple Pro Mouse without the DPI adgustment knob at the bottom.

The only probelem is it doesnt match my Apple Pro Keyboard - Best keyboard ever!!!

Guess il need to make a thread about favorite keyboards...

DPI adjustment? You mean the button sensitivity knob.

DPI adjustment? You mean the button sensitivity knob.

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Yeah... whatever it was...

For Classic (that is, OS 9 and below) Macs, the best mice i've ever used are the ADB Mouse II, or the Pro Mouse.

For PS/2 and USB computers, either of my MS wireless mice, a Microsoft Wireless Wheel Mouse (PS/2, but can be connected to USB via a USB -> PS/2 adaptor, or a Microsoft Mobile Memory Mouse 8000 (which works on either USB or bluetooth)

Of the Apple mouses for older Macs, I like any of the "grey ball" ADB II Mouses. The grey balls were nice and heavy and generally tracked well, even when not cleaned regularly. A really nice (though little known) design feature was the locking mechanism for schools. There's a tiny little hole near the cover over the mouse ball. If you push a straightened out paper clip in there, the cover will click around a little further and lock, preventing students from taking the ball out (unless they have a paper clip and know the secret trick).

I loathed the Apple mouses of the same vintage with the little light weight black ball. They seriously suck and you were constantly having to clean the ball. Another stand-out for bad mouse design from Apple is the original iMac mouse AKA "The iPuck". What were Apple thinking!

Looking on my desk right now, I've got (roughly arranged in order of preference)...

Kensington Mouse-in-a-Box Optical Pro

Apple Desktop Bus Mouse II

SGI three-button charcoal USB mouse

Apple Mighty Mouse (oddly enough, being used with a PC)

My favorite is probably the Kensington - I bought it years ago to use with my G3 iMac and use it on my G4 now, so it's the mouse I use most often. The ADB Mouse II is the most comfortable, but it's not as practical as having a few extra buttons. The rest are very good, although the Mighty Mouse has a few quirks (I only ended up with one because a friend gave it to me, but I do like it). There's something I like about the feel of a one-button mouse, so being able to have that and also right-click is useful to me. The shape of the SGI mouse fits the hand incredibly well, making up for it not having a scroll wheel.

What about this IBM mouse? It looks nice, and I was thinking about getting a "proper" PC mouse for my PC so I can free up the Mighty Mouse to carry around with my laptop. I'm a stickler for aesthetics, like IBM stuff, and am already using an IBM keyboard with the machine, so... anyone besides Scott have thoughts on it?

I like in the following order:

new aluminum Trackpad

The animal Mice (they are sooo cute)

Logitech Mice

G.E. Generic Mouse

Trackballs (Logitech/Kensington/etc...)

Apple Mighty Mouse

Ones I like least:

Crappy Ball Mice

Apple "HockeyPuck" mouse

Apple ADB Mice

TrackStiks (IBM/Whatever)

Those little things that are bars that you push up/down/left/right and aren't really mice)

Trackpads that have tap support. They suck since it's the main default type. You have to install a drive to turn it off, and then the driver likes to disable side-scrolling, or disable it in some apps)

My favorite mouse is the ADB Kensington Turbo Mouse I use with my IIsi and my Power Mac G3.

It has 4 buttons and I have no clue how to program them though...

Trackpads that have tap support. They suck since it's the main default type. You have to install a drive to turn it off, and then the driver likes to disable side-scrolling, or disable it in some apps)

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Egad...I don't get why people like tap support so much. I remember when I first got my PowerBook 1400 brand new back in 1997, I turned on tapping because I'd heard it was a neat feature...quickly turned it off because i found it highly annoying. Flash forward 10 years, once I had a lecturer ask me to turn on tapping instead of clicking with the trackpad button since he found the sound of clicking of trackpad buttons to be distracting. Just the other day a lecturer for one of my courses at uni tried to look at a webpage on my MacBook and found it incredibly hard to use, since I have tapping turned off. How is it that some people can live with something so annoying? Oh, I know...in the same way the Crazy Frog became popular. :lol:

I use trackpad tap all the time. I think it's a great feature.

My favorite wired mouse is the Logitech Trackman Marble.

2nd favorite is the Intellimouse Blue.

3rd favorite is the teardrop ADB mouse.

In general, I find a simple Logitech optical wheel mouse (two buttons, one scroll wheel, with wire) to be the best. I used several different ADB-mouses on my Beige G3 and all of them sucked big time. I then tried mentioned Logitech mouse connected to a USB port and it was like having a new computer. Seriously: using that simple USB mouse on my Beige G3 improved it more than the Radeon 9200 and the 1 GHz G3 I upgraded it with...

Reliable, precise and a perfect fit.

Want to know what my least-favorite mouse is? It's the round ADB Mouse II. Want to know why? Anyone who's had these things for years on end ought to know that the clicker, the mouse button, goes bad after a time. It gets to where you need to apply extra force to keep it down, so you'll end up dropping icons or having a menu roll up prematurely. I have about 4 or 5 of these mice, and only 1 has a good clicker.

Are you talking about the ADB mouse II?

We had that happen with our performa. Then this mom and pop shop sold us another for $10.00 back in 2001 when the cool iMacs were coming out. Man I remember those things.