Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Buying a new Mouse: Guide

There are many kinds of mouse you can find in the market nowadays, which are varying in price and function. You may wonder which one you should buy, which one would suit to your need.

Here is some information to help you get more understanding what are you going to pay for. I hope that it can help you find the best one that you are looking for.

Step I.
First of all, you should take a look at the back of your computer case and find the port. Normal PC should have a PS/2 port which has a shape like the picture shown below.


The green one is PS/2 port for mouse

But for laptops, most them don't have this connector. They use the USB port instead. The USB port has a shape like the picture shown below.


The USB port and connector

Nowadays, the used of USB port is keep increasing rapidly. Sometimes you may find that it hard to find a PS/2 version of the mouse that you want to buy. However, there's a PS/2-USB adaptor available in the market.

Step II.
Wheel, Optical or Laser?? You may wonder what is different between these kinds of mouse. For wheel mouse is kind of outdated in present. It's quite hard to find one in the market nowadays so I wouldn't mention it and I won't recommend you to buy it. The different between Optical mouse and Laser mouse is that the Optical mouse uses an infrared to track the movement of patterns on the surface. It need a mouse pad to work well. For laser mouse, it uses an invisible light instead. It can be used on surfaces with less defined texture such as metal or dark woodgrain desktops without mouse pad needed. For example, try using an optical mouse on a piece of high gloss photo paper and it'll probably not move while a laser mouse is still able to see surface detail. But the price of laser mouse is, of course, higher than the optical one.

Step III.
Corded or Cordless?? I've made a post of this question already. Please take a look.
Here is the link ... Corded VS Cordless Mouse


Step IV.
Next, you should decide that which kind of job that you want your new mouse doing for you.

  • For basic users - I'll recommend that you should buy any mouse that has a reasonable price, acceptable durability in a color and style that you like. But you should concern about the size as well, choose the mouse that has a suitable size with your hand.
  • For internet users - I'd recommend you to buy a mouse that has a scroll wheel button. It's a must !!
  • For advanced users - You'd know quite much about these mice. The thing I'd recommend is find a mouse that have many buttons which you can bind it to perform specific task, it' ll save you a lot of time. Just find one that suit to your working style.
  • For gamers - There are many mice that design for gamers available in the market. I' ll make a post of these mice in details later. The link will be placed here soon.

Step V.
For advanced users and gamers. The things you should know before select the mouse is:

DPI or Dots Per Inch - The DPI is the amount of Dots per inch the optical sensor can read. The Higher DPI means more sensitive the mouse can be. High and adjustable DPI mouse is suits for gamers, especially Action or FPS(First Person Shooting) gamers.

A good gaming example would be in a first person shooter when many gun types are used. When roaming free you will want a high DPI on your mouse so that a quick movement can be performed with ease. However when sniping a lower DPI will help with a much slower movement giving greater accuracy in this instance. If you do a lot of gaming or have reason to believe that changing the DPI will be beneficial to you then a mouse with on-the-fly DPI changing will be a great use.

Step VI.
Choose brand, color, and style.
I'll make a post of mouse brands analysis in details later. The link will be placed here soon.

Step VII.
Make a decision and buy one !!


Hope this post will help you, and enjoy with your new mouse ^^


iGofx

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