24
Aug
2006
I confess: I'm a bit of a mouse freak. I took a look around the office and my desk at home and realized that I have a lot of fancy schmancy mice. Sitting at my desk at the office are a Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 (my current favorite), an MS Wireless Notebook Mouse 4000, a Logitech MX1000, and a Logitech MX700. At home, I've got a Logitech G7 Laser. So, of course, when I saw Logitech's new MX Revolution, I simply had to have one.
The big deal with the Revolution is its funky new wheel. In order to appreciate what's going on here, you really need to check out the details. The main scroll wheel is a mechanical job. It's actually a free-spinning aluminum-alloy flywheel. By "free spinning", I mean that you can flick the wheel in either direction and it will keep spinning until it slows to a halt. Naturally, the faster you spin it, the faster it scrolls. As an experiment, I gave the wheel a good flick in Excel and it scrolled 27,000 rows before it finally stopped (about seven seconds).
The wheel also has a "clicky" ratcheting mode, providing the familiar, tactile line-by-line scrolling that Logitech's other mouse wheels offer. The mouse can switch between these on the fly by clicking the wheel. Further, the SetPoint software is smart enough to temporarily switch out of clicky mode if you start scrolling fast enough. If you switch modes, it is intelligent enough to remember which mode you are in for each application window that is currently open. All of this stuff is highly configurable, even on a per-application basis.
Other new features include the "document flip" wheel (the second wheel you see on the side), which provides a task switcher, and a dedicated search button on the top. The search button is not limited to your web browser: it can search text that is highlighted in any application.
So how does all of this work in practice? Personally, I think the wheel is phenomenal. Throwing the wheel up or down to scroll huge distances in an instant feels very natural. The software reacts very well to changes in the wheel's mode, either due to task switching or scrolling speed changes.
The other gimmicks I could honestly do without. I don't use the document flipper very often, and there are no useful options for configuring it. The search button is not really necessary, either, but at least you can assign any function to it and make it more useful.
As for your usual mousey stuff, the body itself is quite comfortable, with a huge thumb groove/rest that makes a big difference. The mouse isn't as large or as heavy as it appears in pictures, either. Battery life seems extremely respectable, and the mouse comes with a charging base for easy charging. The base seems to be much better designed than those for the MX700/MX1000.
So after one night of use, I'm really digging it overall. It's a little bit on the pricey side ($99 USD), but I've never really felt bad about spending money on the computer components I interact with the most.