Review: My Mouse (Logitech MX610)

My mouse is a Logitech MX610. It's a right-handed, wireless (2.4GHz) laser mouse. I generally like it and thought it was time to review it after using it for about 18 months. (It's funny how people always want to review things when they're new, rather than when they're old; it seems like a review is more useful in the latter case.)

Links:

• http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/428/170&cl=us,en
• http://logitech-sjca.navisite.net/web/ftp/pub/techsupport/mouse/setpoint424.exe

It's a good mouse; wireless, laser. Some quirks, of course:

• Ugly transciever sticks out of the computer (needs bluetooth)
• Uses batteries pretty fast: 2 AA every month or two (needs recharger)
  
• I sometimes hit the special mouse buttons on accident (needs fancy buttons removed)
  
• I never hit the special mouse buttons on purpose. (needs fancy buttons removed)
• Occasionally disconnects for no reason; powercycle is a workaround (needs better QA)
• Logitech's product page is very hard to find, and when you do find it and click "support" you have to select your mouse all over again from drop-downs! Quite annoying, and it affects all of Logitech's products, apparently. (They could fix this with a small amount of JavaScript on their support page that can infer a product from referrer.)
  

For the most part I've been running quite happily without SetPoint, Logitech's driver/utility package, quite happily. I just installed it and it remains to be seen whether it's worth the cost (11M of RAM, and a taskbar icon). I'm pretty happy with it's ability to remap buttons to things I actually need; I'm VERY happy with the ability to horizontally scroll (equivalent to left and right arrow keys). I'm thinking key remapping will be a useful in Photoshop.

You can get this mouse for about $40-$50. There is a new version, the 620MX, and it looks like the only difference is the texture of the mouse wheel.