Review by As a present to myself I wanted to like it, I really did…
The visual design of the Wireless Laser Mouse 8000 receives mixed reviews. I think it looks sleek and subtle compared to many similar mice but my girlfriend thinks it looks clunky and grey. There is a handy indicator light cleverly built into the top of the mouse that turns red when the batteries get low and turns green when the batteries are charged or when the mouse first turns on. When the mouse is in Bluetooth discoverable mode, the indicator light smoothly cycles from green to red.
During regular use (web-browsing and development) the Wireless Laser Mouse 8000 is comfortable. It has a pleasant heft and the brushed metal surface is cool to the hand. Where the thumb and fingers rest on the side of the mouse, there is a soft matte surface. The mouse is ambidextrous.
Though the ergonomic design is, at first, quite comfortable, the mouse becomes uncomfortable under intense use. When playing games that require frequent and precise movements over a long period of time, the mouse's lack of precision combines with the mouse's ambidextrous design to make my mouse hand miserable. Playing a game of Starcraft, for example, makes my pinkie and ring fingers develop a painful cramp that lasts a day or so.
The Wireless Laser Mouse 8000 has five buttons (including the scroll-wheel click) and a scroll-wheel with a horizontal scrolling feature. The buttons themselves have a solid click that feels nice to the touch. That said, it is the same solid click I have come to expect from all mice worth more than ten dollars.
This brings me to the scroll wheel. For some reason Microsoft removed the tactile "bumpy" feedback most mice have when the scroll wheel is used. At first I thought this was because the scroll wheel used the same "high precision" laser tracking technology as the motion tracking. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The scroll wheel still has discrete trigger points that fire scroll events like a regular scroll wheel. Because there is also no tactile feedback, the wheel can be moved back-and-forth between trigger points without actually scrolling. This is stupid.
One last gripe about the scroll wheel is the horizontal scrolling. When horizontal scrolling is active, it is impossible to middle click. Unfortunately, Microsoft made the resistance for a horizontal scroll click much less than the resistance for a middle click. The result is many of my middle-clicks do not actually fire hardware events even though I've received tactile feedback that the middle click happened. This is a hardware design problem. I've looked at raw Bluetooth packet dumps and the mouse simply doesn't send any information if a middle click is performed when a horizontal scrolling button is depressed.
The precision of the Wireless Laser Mouse 8000 is terrible. In repeated tests on multiple operating systems, this mouse fails miserably when trying to move distances of one-pixel at a time. About half the time the cursor will skip a pixel and move two pixels instead of one. Sometimes the problem is much worse and the mouse will erratically move three or four pixels. Any optical mouse made in the last five years has better precision than the Wireless Laser Mouse 8000. It is unacceptable.
The Wireless Laser Mouse is more sensitive than regular optical mice so for the first few days of use, my accuracy was off; I kept overshooting icons. After a couple of days regularly using the mouse, my accuracy returned to normal.
The batteries on my Wireless Laser Mouse 8000 last for about two weeks of everyday use. I turn the mouse off when I'm done for the day but it daily sees ten-to-twelve hours of use. Since the included battery is rechargeable and a docking station is included I've never had any hassle with batteries. When the battery is low, I set the mouse in its cradle. In the morning, the charged mouse is ready to go for another two weeks.
The battery life of the Wireless Laser Mouse 8000 is much lower than the Microsoft Standard Wireless Mouse I previously reviewed. I suspect this is due both to the fact that it contains one AA cell instead of two AA cells, and to the fact that it uses Bluetooth instead of a proprietary RF protocol, the latter of which can be engineered for lower power usage.
This was a pricey mouse I bought myself as a treat. In the end, I wished I'd not thrown away the packing material as soon as I got it. I wouldn't buy this mouse again for $19 much less $99. Not coincidentally, $19 is the same price as the Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical. I've used this mouse every day for three weeks and I seriously cannot believe Microsoft allowed this product out of their hardware labs.
Copyright © 2004-2008 silverorange. All rights reserved.
The more stuff you own, the less happy you will be - so be sure and own good stuff!
Comments
Steve Dinn - March 13, 2007 10:51 pm
But what about the keyboard? That's what I am really interested in.
Mike Gauthier - March 13, 2007 10:53 pm
I bought the mouse as a standalone mouse and have not used the keyboard. Hopefully the keyboard is of higher design quality than the mouse.
Daniel Burka - March 14, 2007 2:54 am
Mike, I totally agree with everything you wrote. I got one of these around Christmas and it's been a mediocre experience to say the least. Aside from the poor performance, I've had a hell of a time trying to get it to work with the native Bluetooth in my MacBook Pro. Plain and simple, the Microsoft Laser Mouse 8000 does not work with OS X. I know there are some complex tutorials online explaining how to trick it into working, but I've had no success. So, now I've got this silly Bluetooth dongle hanging off the side of my laptop. Lame. Buy something else, trust me.
Avi Ben-Nun - June 28, 2007 4:41 am
Thank you for the review. I almost bought this mouse, but with the low precision there is not much sense in replacing my current mouse which is wireless optical.
Do you know of any good bluetooth laser mouse with better precision?
Adam - July 12, 2007 5:10 pm
I use a Wireless Laser Mouse 8000 at work. Your report is spot-on about the middle button click. Pressing down on the wheel at the end of the mouse seems to help, but I still get misfires about a quarter of the time. This rubbish is definitely recall material.
shams - August 3, 2007 11:32 pm
i have to have middle click functionality to function. i bought this mouse cause i thought smooth scrolling wheel would be nice. it only feels smooth. it acts basically useless. u cant set middle click to actally ever happen even w/o horiz scrolling. i cannot learn to use this mouse. it is crap
Sucker - August 22, 2007 8:24 pm
I'm the ulitmate sucker here, I bought not one but two of these god forsaken things. I was looking for a large bluetooth mouse to use and was very surprised to see that there was next to nothing out there and was even more surprised to see Logitech didn't make one, anyhow when these came out I got so excited I got two.
It's been about 3 months now and I must say I chuckled when I read "As a present to myself I wanted to like it, I really did…" because that's exactly how I feel, but as you state the truth about this mouse is harsh, apart from looking reasonable the performance in nearly all aspects for a mouse, especially one that is bluetooth, and laser driven, is about on par with how good Windows 95 was for an Operating System.
steveg - November 3, 2007 5:32 pm
wow - thanks for the review - you've saved me from another waste!
so, has anyone found a good mouse for middle clicking? you can also forget about the "highly rated" (except for middle clicking) logitech mx and vx revolutions - they also have serious middle click issues that you can read about in many reviews - so since most of what i do is read webpages and the middle click new tab launching functionality is my most used "feature", i need a mouse that this works well in - i don't need a lot else, though i greatly prefer wireless and probably an optical if not laser so to avoid the ball sensor wearout that occured over several years in my logitech m-rp67 wireless mouse (in a mouse/keyboard combo)
thanks much mike and other silverfox contributors
regards
steve
kevin - November 9, 2007 4:14 pm
Thank you for this review. I almost bought this mouse off EBay because--like others have mentioned--there aren't too many bluetooth mice, and I don't like Apple's Mighty Mouse. However, I developed a cramp in my ring and pinky fingers when trying out Microsoft's Bluetooth Notebook 5000 mouse for a extended period of time (playing Star Craft as a matter of fact); so, I returned it. Thanks to this review, I see that I would likely have had the same problem with this mouse; so now I am glad I didn't buy it.
Thanks again,
Kevin
Mark W - January 9, 2008 10:25 pm
Great review and I completely agree. I googled for reviews about the terrible precision of this mouse, but yours is the only review that said so. All the other "professional" reviews I've seen can't say enough about how this is THE best mouse.
The cursor is jumpy, and it's very frustrating to edit images with any accuracy. I'm not a graphic artist or anything, I simply edit gifs and jpegs sometimes in MS Paint. With this mouse it's terrible. I can only imagine how much a real graphic artist would hate it.
Max - March 7, 2008 8:05 pm
Its not at all comfortable in the hand, its terrible, almost as terrible as its brother lasermouse 5000
John - April 7, 2008 7:40 am
I have come to hate this mouse. Pointing accuracy is terrible, unless I'm using the mouse on a dull, fuzzy surface, like felt or a wool blanket. Smooth or shiny surfaces render it almost useless. My $19.00 USB wireless mouse performs much bettter on all surfaces.
The back button built into the side is also a frequent headache, too, when I'm web browsing as it is too sensitive. Because the mouse is so sensitive I unconsciously clutch it, and click the back button as a result.
I have a tiny laptop so the side-scrolling is something I actually find myself using. Not a bad feature, but outweighed by the other pecularities of the device.
It's pretty solid, and doesn't fall to bits if I drop it or throw it against a wall in frustration.
st,m - April 8, 2008 9:22 am
This mouse is the worst and most expensive I've ever bought.
Scrolling too sensitive. For example: if any combobox has focus, and we just grab the mouse to do something, the combo's value changes, because of the too sensitive scrolling (even when the mouse pointer is not on the combo!). Very stupid and frustrating "feature".
Middle click useless, because of the above. I have no other mouse which has this problem.
Very bad accuracy, just wondering why the mouse need a laser beam for this poor accuracy :)
Uncomfortable, really...
The only thing which works for me, is the blutooth. Not any problem with a dell latitude.
Steve D - April 16, 2008 6:55 pm
Please do not but this junk folks it is a total waste of money. I bough the mouse with the keyboard and have had no end of trouble with it.
When you do have trouble with it finding the bluetooth you are left with no mouse or keyboard and you can do nothing at all. If you reboot it means you can't even press the right icon to put on whichever user you want to start up. You have to go and get another mouse. At least with the old style mice you had some sort of mouse or keyboard but with this you have nothing.
Totally useless piece of c**p that is expensive too.
xman - June 26, 2008 8:15 am
It's a great mouse! I don't know what you are talking about... It's extremly precise and sensitive. I use it with Razor Destructor mousepad and have no lags at all. "Mouse Rate Checker" displays rate ~500 Hz. I can recommend this mouse ever for hardcore gamers! Just one thing I don't like in 8000 - it is not as well comfort (ergonomic) as old 6000.
Doug - July 14, 2008 8:06 pm
I bought a Microsoft NATURAL wireless laser mouse 6000.
The precision is really bad, like you say in your review. The cursor jump around randomly several pixels. I had my mouse replaced thinking it was a faulty mouse, the replacement was just as bad.
I had the first MS Explorer mouse when it first came out ~8? years ago. It was fine, also have a $15 logitech optical that is nice an smooth to use.
Microsoft really stuffed up with thier new laser sensor!!!
Pat - August 12, 2008 10:24 pm
I've had the wireless 8000 for almost a year. I don't like the mouse wheel all that much, but then I don't like most mouse wheels, and don't use them much. I find that my 8000 is precise in the movement of the mouse pointer, with no jumps.
The large mouse is good, as I have large hands. I'm charging it right now, and find the worst thing about the mouse is making sure the mouse is properly connecting with the charger connections. Also the meaning of the blinky light on the mouse is not well documented in the flyer for the mouse. Basically, if the green light is slowly turning on and off, the mouse is still charging. A solid green light means the battery is charged. The red light, blinking or not, apparently means it's not charging properly, and you need to fiddle with the mouse's position on the charger plate until the light turns green again.