Picking the Right Replacement for a Dead Mouse

Face it, computer mice just don't last very long. The round Apple mouse that came with my G3 worked until sometime around the beginning of this year. Then it would sometimes stop responding, the only solution being unplugging it, reconnecting it, and waiting a few moments for it to start functioning again.

It looked pretty, and it was nice and small. But, like all Apple mice, it only had one button - and no scroll wheel. It also was not optical, and the rubber ball seemed to always pick up dirt. I was down to cleaning it every evening after I was finished using the computer.

The combination of unplugging and reconnecting the mouse several times an evening, plus cleaning the rubber ball, made working with the computer pretty frustrating.

Then a friend of mine gave me his old optical mouse. It had two buttons plus a scroll wheel and was generally a big improvement over the old Apple mouse. Mac OS 9 recognized both buttons, and I installed USB Overdrive so that it would recognize the scroll wheel.

This optical mouse was obviously USB, so when I built my PC several months ago, that was the mouse that I connected to it. It worked the same as it did under Mac OS 9, although the tracking wasn't quite as precise as it had been with the Mac.

Unfortunately, this past week the mouse stopped working. It would stop working, and the PC would show it as disconnected. If you moved it around a bit, it would reconnect - then you could use it pretty much uninterrupted for another five minutes. This was a bit of a nuisance. Since I use this mouse both when I'm on my Mac and when I'm using the PC (I have separate keyboards, but I use the same mouse), I really needed a replacement.

What type to get? There are so many mice these days, and I needed something that was both PC and Mac compatible. Six or seven years ago, before Apple moved from ADB to USB, that would've been a difficult task. However, with most peripherals using USB these days, pretty much any USB mouse can work with the Mac.

But how about brands? There seem to be two major brands of mice available in stores here in Montreal: Microsoft and Logitech.

I did some searching on the Internet and found that the Microsoft WheelMouse Optical 1.1 was on sale for $20 after a $10 rebate. This seemed like a good deal, so I went to the local CompuSmart to buy one. Unfortunately, they were completely sold out, and the only similar Microsoft mouse they had was a wireless optical. I didn't particularly want wireless, so I went over to the other side of the display and took a look at the Logitech mice that were available.

There was quite a selection, and the prices were significantly lower than the equivalent Microsoft mice. Also, since my monitor, speakers, and PC keyboard are a rather ugly, boring shade of beige, I was glad that they had a mouse to match.

The mouse I ended up purchasing was the plain Logitech Optical Mouse, which does absolutely everything I need. It's got a scroll wheel, two buttons, and doesn't have the annoying rubber ball to clean. (Interestingly enough, I didn't see a single non-optical mouse while I was in the store).

It came with a PS/2 adapter, so I can connect it to the PS/2 port when I'm using it with my PC instead of using a USB port. Logitech provides both software for the Mac and computers running Windows. As for how it works, it seems to be better than my previous optical mouse - it's very smooth, and, most important of all, it doesn't randomly stop working.