Apple’s Sleek Magic Mouse Gets Reviewed

A few weeks ago, to much fanfare, Apple announced a slew of new products for general consumption. These included new iMac models, coming in 21.5-inch and 27-inch sizes, updated MacBook’s with LED-backlit displays, and of course, the Magic Mouse. After these launches, I posted about how I felt that Apple price gouges its customers, rather than talk about a product in particular, or its features. So, when I spotted an Ars Technica review of the Magic Mouse, I gave it a read to see what’s up.

If there’s one thing that can be said about Apple, it’s that it values aesthetics higher than most other companies. In some cases, its products could be considered a work of art. Take the Magic Mouse, for example. It’s the sleekest mouse on the planet, and I could picture if being placed in a gallery somewhere. But for me, there’s a rather fine-line between what I’m willing to put up with for overall styling in lieu of comfort. When I saw the Magic Mouse, which favors extreme sleekness over ergonomics, I wasn’t immediately  impressed.

For the most part, the author of this review agrees, although he points out certain other features that make the mouse a winner, or a loser, depending on your viewpoints. What makes the Magic Mouse most unique is its multitouch capabilities. It features no scroll wheel or ball whatsoever, but allows you to rather use your finger to replace whatever your mouse wheel could handle – except with a major caveat… you cannot use a middle click.

That to me alone would be a deal-breaker, but the fact that it also interprets some movements as swipes would become annoying very quickly. For users of Exposé and Dashboard, some functionality is lost there as well (regained through various hacks). On the upside, the mouse proved to be a little more accurate than the last that the author used, and the momentum scrolling (think Logitech’s Revolution scroll wheel) works quite well also. At $70, the mouse has it’s upsides and downsides, so it’s really up to you to decide if moving on up is worth the time and money. It primarily comes down to how much you love multitouch and can handle the extreme sleekness, so your decision shouldn’t be too difficult.

The two-finger swipe is quite useful when browsing the Web, and I’ve already stopped right-clicking to go backwards and forwards through my browser history. You don’t even need to grip the mouse as you swipe; there’s enough static friction to keep it from moving if you perform a hands-off gesture (I’ve tried on glass, wood, and granite). If you have used screen zoom with the Apple Mouse, you’ll find the implementation with the Apple Mouse to be fairly intuitive—simply hold down the control key and swipe your finger across the top of the mouse.