Apple Magic Mouse Review



Product: Apple Magic Mouse
Category: Electronics
Reviewer: V8SuperCars

Introduction
Magic Mouse is Apple's latest mouse to hit the market, released in conjunction with Apple's new iMAC a few months back.
The Magic Mouse is now available to purchase as a stand alone product at a price point of $69USD or for our International readers UK £55, Japan ¥6800, Aus $99 Respectively.


Design
The mouse is a full touch sensitive mouse, it has no visible buttons, the whole mouse when pressed down is the only button on the unit.
The mouse is constructed of a clean gloss white only displaying Macintosh's bitten Apple logo in a faint Grey, it's a super low profile mouse slightly wider and fatter than the standard mouses available on the market.
It sends its signal via bluetooth to your Apple computer and uses 2 AA batteries to to fire it up with a on off button on the base of the unit, along with the cover were batteries fit into and the laser tracking sensor that does not shoot a red laser light into your eye's if turned upside down.
Look wise its nice, it looks as neat as you could ever imagine and makes your home office feel like a million dollar Hilton office.



Usage
So far the mouse has been a joy to use, upgrading from two mouses before on my iMAC, one being the Mighty Mouse and the other a Microsoft Arc Mouse.
The Magic Mouse blows both out the water.
My old Mighty Mouse would have to be one of the worst mouses i have ever used, the scroll ball on top while great in theory had nothing but problems with, the precision of the mighty mouse was average and the side buttons were two hard to press when you needed it yet would activate the desktop(what i had it set to) for no reason at all with the slightest of movement.
The Microsoft Mouse was flawless in design, straight forward style mouse, it never had no bell or whistles to speak of but it worked and worked well only let down by 1 maybe 2 things (the second not a major)
1. Battery life within a few weeks or less of general use it would be up for new batteries, I would be constantly buying AAA batteries for it and in the end drove me up the wall.
2. It run off 2.4Ghz with a USB Dongle, meaning i was short changed of a USB port cause of the mouse, nothing major but still something worth adding in.

Onto the Magic Mouse. Think we will start with the biggest feature: The touch sensitive panel. It's ultra precise, moving your finger around on the mouse gives instant feed back, scrolling pages is as simple slide your finger anyway on the mouse and be amassed at how you are scrolling up and down word documents and websites with the ease of use of any finger anywhere on the mouse touch pad, place 2 fingers on the mouse and swipe left to activate the back button on your browser, or swipe right to go forward in your browser or move back and forth in a finder window in coverflow, this 2 finger swipe works with all your favorite Mac programs from iTunes to iPhoto and unlike the older Mighty Mouse the touch pad works perfect... every time. Pressing on the mouse with your index finger(pointer finger) will give you a standard left click and pressing the mouse on the right hand side will give you a secondary mouse click or right click as we call it
Moving your mouse around is ultra sharp and responsive picking up all movements with ease, the design and feel of the mouse just seem right, low and flat is the order of the day and its very comfortable to use for hours on end and never feels like you have to try grab onto it, it just glides and does what it needs to with minimum effort.



Installation
Very simple just turn on bluetooth on your computer, turn the Mouse on, hit search in the bluetooth menu of the iMAC/Computer and pick Magic Mouse when i comes up in the list of found devices, that's it all done and connected.


Battery life
So far so good, its head and shoulder better than the MS Arc Mouse i was using and depending on use should get a few months battery life before a battery replacement is needed, I consider this a great feature as its packed with loads of features and electronics to run the touch sensitive panel so to have it last longer than previous mouses is a bundle of joy.

Down sides
-Apples default software for the mouse is cut back and designed for the average user. (See Below The Saving Grace)
-No dedicated built in batteries with usb charger.
-Right click needs no fingers on mouse i.e. lift your pointer finger to right click, its simple in everyday use and always registers a right click unlike the old Might Mouse, but gamers play World of Warcraft and other games might not like the idea as much faster button clicks are needed and can cause error clicks compared to 2 separate buttons on a traditional mouse.

The Saving Grace
The Software for the Mouse is a let down for any Tech savy Mac user.
The Mouse has an ultra precise touchpad, it picks up every last detail from how much pressure you are applying, how many fingers on the mouse and even were each finger is and what it is doing, yet apple scaled it back in terms of built in Software.
Thankfully a quick download of some free Software turns this mouse into a powerhouse of options, you can program the mouse to do almost anything, from 3 finger swipe down to do expose, 3 finger swipe to show desktop, tip tap buttons left or right, i have this setup to adjust volume up and down, its as simple as placing one finger on the mouse and tapping the finger next to it to adjust the volume down and opposite fingers taps to turn volume up, place 4 fingers on the mouse and click to put my iMac to sleep, pinch you fingers together on the mouse to minimize window or opposite to expand a window, anything can be change, want to pinch it to turn volume down and open fingers to turn it up, anything you want the mouse to do is possible with the free program added.





Final word
Think Apple are onto a winner here.. Finally!!! Its been something Apple has been lacking in for years, everything Apple seems to touches turns into Gold yet Apple have been struggling to make a modern yet practical Mouse.
The basic software will be fine for many users but for those of us who love expose and opening loads of browser tabs/windows on the fly the free software is needed to expand the Mouse for good to great status and bring out its true power, performance and potential.
For general computing, work related and internet surfing im yet to use a better mouse.
Its almost perfect only let down by a few minor oversights, regardless its still the best Mouse i have used and with something that looks this good in the home office it can be nothing but a winner.

TQ Final Score-
4 of 5 Michelas

Software i use is-
http://blog.boastr.net/
So many feature and setup so easy and effective
5/5 Michlas for software upgrade and its free!