Excellent laptop mouse, or even for use on desktop or HTPC

Author's Rating:

Pros: Well designed, ergonomic, precision pointing on 99% of surfaces

Cons: Not perfect. Just darn close.

The Bottom Line: 
Excellent mouse for laptop and more. Very comfortable, usable, customizable, and extremely well-designed.

Author's Review
Unless you have very large hands, this mouse is an EXCELLENT choice. Ergo design is near-perfect and doing computer work 10 hours a day, I have no ergo issues with this mouse. The smooth scroll wheel sets this mouse way above the others. If you don't like the smooth scroll wheel, there is a physical slider on the bottom that engages the traditional "step-click" action on the wheel. The "not quite perfect" features are the forward/back buttons at the thumb are not in the best location. I usually have to lift my hand off the mouse a little to use them, but it's still very handy and easy to get used to. The Zoom feature at the front left of the mouse offers a little too much resistance, and is only useful once in a while. But again, still handy when you need it (and you'd use it much more often if you work in graphics). You can press down on the scroll wheel to activate Logitech's much-improved task-switcher. I like it, but haven't weaned myself off of Alt-Tab yet. I tried the mouse for a week without ANY software installation--just out of box, plugged into XP. It worked great without the Logitech enhanced software. I then added the software to enable additional features (application-specific settings, reprogrammable buttons, task-switcher, wheel sensitivity, etc). The software adds features that I like, but I would still love this mouse to death, right of the box without any additional software doodads. Battery life seems fine. After about 2-3 weeks, I'm still using the supplied Duracell Alkaline AA, which still shows full power--and I use this mouse A LOT. Oh, and the other thing I love about the mouse is the TINY USB receiver. It's only about 1-1/4 inches long and 1/4 inch thick. Smaller than any thumb drive I've seen. The mouse senses the system's status and goes into standby when the system does. And if you want to turn the mouse off, there's either the power button on the bottom of the mouse, or if you want to shut it off and prevent it from powering on in your laptop bag, just insert the USB receiver into the storage port at the butt of the mouse and it shuts the mouse off and prevents accidental re-activation. Also, this mouse could be used for desktops or Home Theater PC's. In *MY* humble little tests, I was able to use the mouse effectively at about 15-20 ft. It'll depend on line-of-sight and other factors in your environment, though. Finally, this mouse senses movement perfectly on nearly all surfaces. I find it a challenge to test it on things, and it works on my shirt, back of my hand, jeans, sofa, fuzzy blanket, dog, etc. It did NOT work well on glass or polished marble--which is understandable. If you ever have a jittery pointer on a NORMAL surface, it's probably because a hair or piece of dust is stuck in the laser port.
BUY IT. YOU'LL LOVE IT. (I've found this mouse for as little as $49 or $59 at Frys.com and Amazon.com).