A couple of years ago I got the Microsoft Sidewinder X8 mouse. It seemed like an awesome mouse at the time – rugged, enough buttons to be useful but not overwhelming, and the “works on anything†BlueTrack technology. It was a little big, but I have big hands, so I wasn’t too worried about that.
Well, it sucks. The receiver has to be really close to the mouse, or it doesn’t track smoothly. The feet on the bottom of the mouse (any of them! it comes with three sets of interchangable feet!) don’t glide smoothly on my mousepad. The battery doesn’t hold much charge anymore; and, to make matters worse, the charge cable doesn’t seat snugly on the mouse and will sometimes stop mid-charge. It was also awkward to hold – not because it was large, per se, but because it didn’t really attempt to fit your hand.
I finally got to my breaking point with it and decided to use some of my Christmas money to buy a replacement: the Logitech Performance Mouse MX. I’ve only had it for a few days, but so far it is blowing the Sidewinder out of the water. The receiver is tiny, but even from all the way at the back of my computer, it flawlessly picks up the signal from the mouse. The feet on this mouse are incredibly smooth, letting it glide easily on the mousepad. And the contours on the mouse make it easy to grip.
So, like I said, it’s still early days, but I have better hopes for this mouse. We’ll see how it goes.