My first mouse was the one that came with my old Atari ST, which saw many an hour of Dungeon Master. While it wasn’t the best mouse I’ve ever used, it was still better than the mouse that came with my first Mac, a IIci.
First party Mac mice have always been shit. FIGHT ME.
I ended up using trackballs with my Macs, and swore by them for years, until I switched to using mice again when I switched from Mac to Windows at home.
On Windows, I’ve always been quite fond of Microsoft’s rodents. I tried various Logitechs, but found their reliability and longevity to be awful (the skates would always fall off for a start, then the mousewheel would crap out).
For a long time, I loved my old Microsoft Laser Mouse 6000, but eventually the cable gave up the ghost. I also owned a couple of Habus, Microsoft’s experimental collaboration with Razer, but they suffered from longevity problems much like the Logitechs.
My most recent mouse from Microsoft has been the Intellimouse Explorer Pro, which is a modern re-release of the classic Intellimouse, and it’s been great, handily replacing a Razer Deathadder (good mice in their own right, but again suffering from reliability issues).
However, having been playing a lot of Guild Wars 2 recently, my current mouse is a Razer Naga Trinity, one of those mice with a whole slew of side buttons, and it’s been really good. I use the circular 7-button side piece, as the 12-button side isn’t very ergonomic at all. Probably my favourite feature is the left and right clicks on the mouse wheel, giving me two more buttons.
I can take or leave the coloured lighting on mice. Don’t really see the point to be honest, as my mitt is usually covering the lit areas on the mouse.
One overarching trend with my mouse usage however is that I always, always prefer wired to wireless. Again, Logitech put me off of wireless mice early on.
And I just point and laugh at users of the Magic Mouse when it runs out of battery. That right there is a prime example of Apple’s mule-headed devotion to form over function.
Regarding the MMO multibutton mice, I have a friend who’s a professional movie editor, and he has started using them for editing with Media Composer, as he can bind a lot of keyboard functions to the mouse, speeding him up. He’s also the one who put me on to using crafting mats as large, cheap and durable mouse mats.
