Microsoft Arc Mouse product reviews

Just when you thought you had seen it all, Microsoft comes out with something really impressive! A full-sized mouse that stores like a laptop mouse sounds like something that escaped from the Transformers movie to me, but here it is... the Microsoft Arc mouse.

Take a normal sized mouse... put it on a chronic weight-loss program by removing most of the surplus electronics and shrinking the rest to the limit of consumer-level technology, add wireless technology and a miniturised tranceiver that attaches to the base of the mouse with a small magnet, give it a range of funky colours, and glossy black and white of course, cut it in half and stick in a hinge... and you have the next best thing to hit the portable computing market since mobile broadband.

It has all the usual buttons: left and right click, clickable scrollwheel, and a '< Back' button under your thumb. Somehow, they have managed to cram an entire mouse into less than a third of the volume of a normal mouse, leaving room for a battery compartment, and the whole folding paradigm. Frankly, I don't know whether to be impressed, or infatuated!

To use, it's as easy, if not easier, to use than a normal mouse. With my standard mouse it scrapes around the desktop, slowly polishing it smooth... this mouse glides. Just glides. And with a far higher reporting rate than I was expecting, a slight twitch can send your cursor careening off the screen at a great rate of knots if you aren't ready for it. Usability Tip #1: Pay a visit to the "mouse" settings in control panel, and lower the rate a few clicks. It would have been nice to have a variable rate selecton on the mouse itself, much like Logitech's G5 offering, but on a mouse this compact, you can't expect everything.

Overall, the ability to fold it up and stuff it away in the laptop case, but have the feeling and functionality of a full-sized mouse is just a wonderous boon to those of us with hands bigger than a pixie's. Gone is that annoying cramping after half an hour of mousing while waiting for the next train. Quite simply, this is the benchmark for mousing innovation for the next year to come. Can't wait to see what they come out with next! Only two small comments I need to make: 1) I wish there was a way to over-ride the battery cutoff when it's folded, because there have been a few times when I wanted to take advantage of the high reporting resolution, and use it in confined spaces. This would have been practical if I could use the mouse in it's folded configuration... and 2) I just LOVE the way unpacking it reminds me of the old Star Trek communicators from Captain Kirk days. It's just total geek-appeal as far as I am concerned!