You may not have guessed it, but Leonardo Da Vinci, Aristotle, Mahatmah Gandhi, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Mozart and the good me have something in common. Yes, like these famous people, I’m left-handed and like them, I’ve always been frustrated by the lack of a computer mouse designed specifically for the way we work. Leonardo, Albert and I always had to look with envy at the carefully sculpted, beautifully contoured mice that right-handed people have always had, while we left-handers either had to live with boring, unsculpted mice or suffer crooked hands.
It’s been taking a hell of a long time, but Logitech has finally made an effort to remedy the situation. Maybe that’s because Logitech’s CEO is left-handed himself. So if he made sure I greet him with my left hand.
The MX610 Left-Hand Laser Cordless was first announced at CeBIT in 2006, but it took me so long to actually get one from Logitech. The left mouse is an exact mirror image of the right-hand version of the MX610, which debuted in early 2006, which we never actually got to see, so aside from being left-handed, it’s worth checking out here.
The mouse is a pretty good looking device with a silver, gray and black finish and most exciting for left-handers, it has plenty of sexy curves, something we’ve been starving for when it comes to mouse movements. There are seven buttons on its surface, all of which fall neatly under the reach of the index finger and thumb.
At the heart of the MX610 is a laser rather than an optical LED sensor first introduced by Logitech on the MX1000. This means the mouse doesn’t have the red light that optical mice have at the base, but more importantly the laser is much more sensitive than LEDs, potentially allowing it to work on more surfaces than optical mice. I used it primarily on my mouse pad, but it seemed perfectly happy on my desk’s wood grain. The mouse has a resolution of 800 dpi, which is good, but not as good as the 2,000 dpi that some dedicated gaming mice offer.
The mouse communicates with the small dongle over the crowded 2.4GHz frequency, and some users have complained that the mouse is prone to communication issues as a result. I plugged the dongle straight into my monitor’s USB port, so there was very little distance between the two and actually a line of location. So it’s hardly surprising that I haven’t had any problems like this. If your USB ports are only on the back of the PC and you’re having trouble, a USB extension cable could be the solution. It doesn’t come with one, but there is a PS/2 to USB converter so you can use the mouse without occupying a USB port if you don’t have an spare.
The 2.4 GHz frequency also allows the mouse to receive and send information from the PC – Logitech speaks of a smart mouse. It knows when the PC is on standby or off and can shut itself down, which is very useful for saving energy. This is important as Logitech only claims a three month lifespan and the MX610 runs on regular AA batteries rather than a built in rechargeable battery with stand. So you need a spare set of AA in case the battery runs out. However, you have enough warning to buy a new set if you don’t, as there’s a light on top of the mouse that shows when the power is low and the SetPoint software will let you know as well. If you leave your PC on all the time, you can manually turn off the mouse with a button and power indicator on the bottom of the device.
The mouse can not only detect the state of the PC, but also when you have received an email or a message from a chat client, with the former slowly blinking amber and the latter blue. The lights are also buttons, so you can just press them to bring up the respective application. This functionality is available through Logitech’s SetPoint software, but the downside is that it’s limited to Outlook Express, Outlook and MSN Messenger, or Yahoo Messenger. This was fine with me as I use Outlook and MSN on my work computer and I found it very useful to be able to use the mouse to launch the messenger without having to go to the taskbar. However, I also use Thunderbird for my personal email and it just isn’t supported, which is a shame. If you’re using another chat client like AOL IM or Trillian, this feature doesn’t work either, which is disappointing.
If you don’t want the light flashing on every spam that hits your inbox, you can use SetPoint software to manually filter messages to the messages you want. SetPoint also allows you to map the function of each key to your liking. You can do this on an application basis, so you can customize how the mouse works in your apps, which is a good thing. If you don’t see an installed app in the list, you can add it by selecting Manage programs. What I don’t understand is why the software doesn’t have an option that lets you apply the same settings globally. I wanted to map cut and paste to the side buttons in all apps, but had to go into each program and do it manually – a real chore.
The top two buttons are also set fairly high on the bulbous part of the mouse, requiring you to remove your thumb to reach them, which is a bit awkward. There are volume up/down and mute buttons on the front of the mouse. Being able to control the volume in this way without having to switch to the keyboard is great, although I found I had to reach down a bit to reach the volume up button on the front. The side buttons, which default to forward and back, are conveniently within thumb reach. Of course it all depends on hand size, but in general I found the feel to be good, if not quite as good as the MX Revolution (although of course the limitation with this mouse is that it’s right-handed, so I couldn’t use it ).
Besides the usual scrolling and clicking, the mouse wheel can also be moved from side to side, which is useful for web pages and Excel. I found that it didn’t click as easily as my regular Logitech wired mouse, and I’m working harder to get it to do that. I also had to change the setting in the SetPoint software that defaults the middle button to a zoom function, which I found a bit strange – clicking is much more useful (e.g. wheel-clicking links in Firefox to get a link to start in a new tab).
Of course, many people will wonder how good the mouse was in games. I tested with short sessions in Day of Defeat: Source, Counter-Strike: Source and a bit of Half-Life 2 single player. I found that most of the time I needed some practice, but I was content that the mouse wasn’t really the problem with my lack of success. I still feel that die-hard Twitch gamers are better served with a faster dpi mouse, which means left-handed users are wired. However, if you’re more of a casual gamer, the MX610 is acceptable.
Actually, a contoured mouse felt a bit unusual to me, but I quickly got used to it. Although I use mine on the left side of the keyboard, I’ve always kept the left and right click keys around in the normal way. With this mouse, however, I felt comfortable actually toggling it since the index finger is faster for those left clicks.
“‘Verdict”‘
It might not be perfect, but having not had the luxury of using a contoured mouse before, I have to say that I’ve been very happy with the left-handed MX610. Economies of scale inevitably dictate that the left-handed version will be more expensive than the right-hand one, but luckily it only costs a few pounds more. I can happily recommend the MX610 for left-handers, and not just because there is no other way.