Recommend me a mouse-like device!

Fembot

Or trackball.

My last purchased trackball was a Microsoft Trackball Explorer, which hasn't been in production for quite some time. It was purchased for ergonomic reasons, as the wild movements of the mouse were taking their toll on my fragile nerdly wrists. I've never been happy with having to constantly clean out the cat hair to keep it running smoothly - however it has been awesome in all other respects.

It has been suggested to me that the modern precision mouse is leagues more wrist-friendly than the clunkers of old, and that I might not kill myself by using one. I'm still a bit worried, and would probably rather try another trackball (which are pretty rare these days!) unless there is compelling evidence to suggest that a mouse would in fact be better.

So please - suggest me a pointing device of some sort! Anecdotes detailing how your particular favorite type has enriched your life are welcome.

DrFrylock

It's not "high precision," but it's my favorite mouse. It's the Microsoft Intellimouse Optical. It's pretty vanilla: two buttons and a vertical ratcheted scroll wheel that clicks as a middle button. I like it because it has two additional buttons: a left and a right shoulder button. I have not seen any other mouse that put a button on the right shoulder of the mouse. I have five fingers and this one lets me use four of them.

During ordinary business, left-shoulder is a back button for your Web browser (or Explorer window) and the right button is a forward button. Natural and intuitive. For gaming I bind the right shoulder button to key the mic, so a little squeeze with the right hand side of my hand will let me have precision mic control.

RNEMESiS42

DrFrylock wrote: »

It's not "high precision," but it's my favorite mouse. It's the Microsoft Intellimouse Optical. It's pretty vanilla: two buttons and a vertical ratcheted scroll wheel that clicks as a middle button. I like it because it has two additional buttons: a left and a right shoulder button. I have not seen any other mouse that put a button on the right shoulder of the mouse. I have five fingers and this one lets me use four of them.

During ordinary business, left-shoulder is a back button for your Web browser (or Explorer window) and the right button is a forward button. Natural and intuitive. For gaming I bind the right shoulder button to key the mic, so a little squeeze with the right hand side of my hand will let me have precision mic control.

This is the same mouse I've been using for I don't know how many years (I think I got it in 2000??) It's finally giving way due to heavy use and age, so I've been looking for a replacement. It was precise enough for me, and I used to be a hardcore Counter-Strike nerd. I did the exact same mic bind for the right button, heh. I also took off the furry soft pads on the bottom, because they started to catch on the table and slow me up. I guess I'll just buy this mouse again, if there hasn't been anything better in eight years within its range of simplicity and functionality.

Zante

I've been using the Razer Lachesis for a while and it's pretty awesome. It looks great if that's your thing, it's comfortable, it's incredibly precise and most importantly it has a metric assload of customisable buttons all over it.

The Black Hunter

Logitech G5

Comfy, very responsive, and you can change senstivity on the fly, which can be useful in games

saint2e

Zante wrote: »

I've been using the Razer Lachesis for a while and it's pretty awesome. It looks great if that's your thing, it's comfortable, it's incredibly precise and most importantly it has a metric assload of customisable buttons all over it.

Truth. I picked this up last week and it is an amazing gaming mouse.

Angel_of_Bacon

You could try a vertical mouse like this, a guy I knew had one and as far as I know he liked it ok. There are some other ergonomic mouse-esque things of varying degrees of weirdness on that page as well.