Electronics Review: Dell Optical Mouse

Stars: 5 out of 5
Pros: Not affected by dirt, easy if any adjustment from old mouse

Cons: None

The Bottom Line:

New technology

Works just like what you're used to

Let this light your way

Say Goodbye to the Track Ball Forever with the Dell Optical Mouse

As part of a computer upgrade at work last summer, I got a new mouse.  Honestly, I would have been fine keeping my old one, or so I thought.  Now that I've been using this mouse, there's no way I'd go back.

As far as using it goes, this is your standard two button mouse.  It's black in color, so it does seem to hide dirt better than my old white one did.  It's slightly indented on the left hand side, which makes it ergonomic.  The two buttons work perfectly.  They are spaced slightly apart, but I haven't had any problems clicking where I think a button should be only to find it wasn't there.  In the middle is the scroll bar, and it works perfectly.  The chord is about three feet long, which is more than enough to reach from my computer on the floor up to my mouse pad on my desk.

In every way you would normally use a mouse, it's just like any other mouse, which alone would make it a fine switch.  But here's what I love about it.  This is an optical mouse, meaning it uses a little light on the bottom of the mouse to read movement instead of the more traditional track ball.  Now I don't know about you, but my track ball was always collecting gunk.  It might have helped if I used a better mouse pad, but I love my 10 year old Dilbert one.  But because it is so old, my mouse would go through cycles where it would work fine then slowly get finicky until I would clean off the rollers.  And they'd get pretty dirty, too.

Because this uses the optical light, I haven't had to clean the bottom of my mouse once.  The light is located in the direct center of the mouse.  The housing for it is located just slightly back from the bottom of the mouse.  There are three pads on the bottom of the mouse that further raise the mouse from the mouse pad.  All this seems to keep the housing and the light very clean.  Even looking at it now, none of the bottom looks the least bit dirty.

Honestly, there was no adjustment time for me.  I went from using my old mouse to using this new one with perfect ease.  But the fact that it seems to be no maintenance makes it worth the upgrade to me.

No, I wasn't looking for that upgrade when I got it.  But I am loving my Dell Optical Mouse now that I have it.