Unix Mouse Shootout

I miss using my Logitec MX 1100 so much. It was the perfect fit for my hand, and batteries lasted months. I still have it in fact, just to make sure I'm not being overly nostalgic. Unfortunately the materials were poor quality: I literally wore a hole through the thumb pad and the scroll wheel disintegrated.

I now have the Performance MX, mentioned in the article, and it's not great. In addition to the battery and sensor issues I'll add that for me the mouse is actually too small and has very poor ergonomics. The thumb button is in a bad position and doesn't feel good, same with the back/forward buttons, the shape is too narrow, it doesn't fill my palm, and the tilt turns my wrist such that it contacts the desk in an uncomfortable way.

I've looked at the MX Master mice and I (and others) agree with the author that it's similar in shape to the Performance, not the 1100. I feel like I had the perfect mouse and now it's discontinued and sells for $180-$400.

https://support.logi.com/hc/en-us/articles/360025418973--Pro...

Cheapest wired optical 3-button mouse with scrollwheel, the local Supermarket had in stock, when my right button began to fail(some Logitech labeled Fujitsu).

[0] https://de.hama.com/00182603/hama-optische-3-tasten-maus-mc-...

Identifies as ID 093a:2510 Pixart Imaging, Inc. Optical Mouse via lsusb.

Wheel does not run free, but the resistance is OK for me, also the force needed to click it as middle button. And it isn't loud.

No other switches, no selectable DPI.

Works on any surface, glides well, is also usable via PS/2-adapter.

White to easily see if it's gunky. Also cleans easily.

Was meant as an emergency spare until new superduperhypergadget arrives.

Got stuck in choice paradoxon while browsing online, got annoyed by gamer-oriented marketing-crap, got enraged by impertinent prices.

Still on that basic thing and missing nothing so far :-)

I’ve been using a variant of the Logitech MX-518 on macOS for over a decade, over at least a couple different model names. I usually remap the game-oriented buttons to either system functions (window/app management etc) or navigation (eg Home/Page Up/Page Down for mouse-heavy interaction with long content).

Lately I don’t even use those buttons. And maybe none of these mice have been especially reliable, I’ve had to replace them for cable failure repeatedly. But my muscle memory for the exact design is so strong that it’s hard to imagine adapting to another mouse after all this time.

> It was possible to run AMIGA UNIX (also known as Amix) on AMIGA hardware. That was an AT&T Unix System V Release 4 developed as alternative to default AmigaOS but you needed Amiga A3000UX hardware for that.

Correction: Any Amiga 3000 (@25Mhz) can run it. The UX bit was simply a badge change on the case, and a X11 supported graphics card, plus a supported Network card.

I have an Amiga 3000 and the bits to run it, I've just not done it yet.

MX Master 3 has a USB-C port and is well recommended by myself, however be warned, the advertised functionality around programmable gestures is not really workable outside of MacOS (or windows). On Linux, these gestures are expressed as key combinations as opposed to individual "button" presses, which I believe may be less than ideal.

Although I don't own it, I've been interested in https://ploopy.co/mouse/. It runs QMK (open-source programmable firmware) which I've had a great time using with my keyboard.

Whole heatedly recommend the MX master, feels really comfortable in the hand (and usb-c!!). Shame they don't make a left one for people who are left-handed.

Still looking for an equivalent mouse with hardware support for accelerated elastic scrolling and high-dpi.

The best mouse for me is the 3DConnexion CadMouse Wireless. And the reason for this is that the mouse actually has three real buttons on top, in addition to a wheel.

Yes, you read that correctly, the middle button is a real button, not a wheel that you click. This is a game changer for me, and I am very glad that I found this mouse.

The wheel, which is nestled between the left and the middle button, is also clickable, and can be configured to be an alias for the middle button or a separate button. (There are also two side buttons and one more button on top, but I never use those.)

I went through this recently and ended up with a Logitech G604, which I would endorse. It ticks all of the author's boxes (ergonomic, scroll click toggle, extra buttons, long battery life on one AA, works on glass, included USB dongle and bluetooth support) and goes above and beyond:

- It's very difficult to find a mouse with a wheel that lets you choose what mode it's in. Most of the recent Logitech mice (e.g. MX Master) try to detect it and have fragile mechanisms. This one has a big hefty metal wheel that still spins even in clicky mode, and can be switched to frictionless with the button behind the wheel. The last mouse I had that could do that was my trusty G500, which was a worthy successor to the MX518.

- It has a ton of buttons, but it doesn't feel like too many. (6 under the thumb, which feels more reasonable than the side-numpad on some mice, two next to the left index finger, and two on the "wheel tilt") The 6 under the thumb are reasonably easy to distinguish by touch, and if you lay them out right you can even press multiple at once for common chords (e.g. Ctrl-Shift, Command-Alt) which leads me to...

- All of the buttons, including the wheel tilt buttons (except for the bluetooth pairing button) are remappable to keyboard keys and there is a mappable shift key that reassigns all of the buttons, which allows for rudimentary chording. I have one layer for modifiers and one layer for OS commands. My wheel tilt switches desktops left/right, which is tremendously useful.

- It has 5 onboard memory "slots" for different mappings for all of the buttons, DPI levels, etc. that are OS independent, which means you can preprogram them and then use them on whatever OS you connect the mouse to. I have settings for MacOS, Windows, and application hotkeys that I use that can be toggled between with a button press. The programming application is Windows only, but you don't have to install Logitech's bloatware, you can use their standalone "Onboard Memory Manager". https://support.logi.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500000915041-Onb...

The shortcomings are:

- It's a big hefty, although I tend to prefer that

- The wheel is sometimes easy to scroll while pressing it, and the detents feel a little shallow.

I don't have my muscle memory trained yet, but theoretically you could press all the Emacs modifiers without taking your hand off the mouse.

Logitech 3-button PS/2 mouse: https://i.imgur.com/yH4Blki.jpg

I've picked up a few over the years. They work great plugged into a PS/2-USB adapter. Because my primary work editor is acme, having three real mouse buttons is critical. The only disadvantage is that some modern websites really assume you have a scroll wheel.

IIRC what you're calling PRIMARY is actually just clipboard and what you're calling SECONDARY is in fact PRIMARY. There is a third buffer, SECONDARY, that's more useful inside text editors and allows you to select text with the mouse without moving the cursor by holding control (meta/alt in emacs), selecting the text you want and pasting with middle click.

I've had a couple of the Marathon first gen for 3-4 years and I've been very happy with them. Partly because they are $<30, but they also have very long life (I've only changed batteries once), love the switchable scroll wheel.

I was looking at all of the fancy ones and came very close to buying one, but after getting the Marathon I declared it my official mouse.

I've had a logitech trackman marble connected to every desktop/laptop I've used for over the past 20 years. I find it much easier on my wrist/arm to scroll the ball instead of physically moving the mouse and its a good fit for cramped spaces and glass top desks.

My favourite has to be the IBM Scrollpoint 3 button mouse.

http://www.ibmfiles.com/pages/scrollpoint.htm

Off-topic, but AFAIK, the Lenovo Thinkpad keyboard (with the eraser-head pointer) is one laptop keyboard that still features a third mouse/trackpad button.

Are there other keyboards that also offer this?

Is there any mouse on the market that has three actual buttons and a separate scroll wheel? So that you don't have to use the scroll wheel as a button?