Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 8000 Review

Design

The shape of the mouse is pretty standard – it’s ambidextrous so there’s no huge thumb groove. It’s several different shades of grey and there’s one large piece of brushed aluminum for the palm area. This is the first mouse that I’ve used that has any part of its casing made of metal. If you leave the mouse sitting there for a while, the metal does get a little cold – no big deal. It’s generally a slick looking mouse, albeit not terribly exciting either.

You’ve got your regular right and left clicks (thank God) a mouse wheel that also has horizontal scrolling and a forward and back button, on one each side of the mouse. Around the divider for the left and right click buttons, there’s an LED indicating battery condition. When placed on the charging pad, the green LED will slowly pulse until it is fully charged when the LED stays on. In use, the LED is normally off, unless the battery is low, at which point a red LED will light up, telling you it’s time to charge the mouse.

Ergonomics

The mouse is pretty ergonomic, although definitely doesn’t feel as nice in the hand as the MX518 I had been using. This is the sacrifice Microsoft made; since the Laser 8000 is ambidextrous, they couldn’t make the nice finger grooves found on a mouse designed solely for one hand or the other. To cater to both markets, a bit of comfort had to be sacrificed. It’s far from uncomfortable, it’s just not as comfortable as some mice I’ve used.

As with many of the larger wireless mice, the Laser 8000 is hefty. It’s significantly heavier than the MX518. The single battery that the mouse uses isn’t a significant portion of the weight either; even without the battery the mouse is still quite heavy. While the weight itself isn’t a big deal, the mass combined with mediocre gliding feet makes movement a little more difficult than other mice I’ve used. You won’t get sore biceps anytime soon, but it may not be well suited for very quick movement in games. The Bluetooth dongle is relatively small – shorter in length than most USB memory keys.

Buttons are generally well placed, except for the forward button on the right side of the mouse. On Logitech mice, the forward and back buttons are placed near the thumb, and the thumb can easily pivot to access both of them. With the Laser 8000 though, the forward button requires some tricky and sometimes awkward movement of the ring finger or pinkie. To make the mouse ambidextrous, both the forward and back buttons are symmetrically placed on the lengthwise axis of the mouse. Unfortunately, last I checked, all my other fingers extend further upwards than my thumb. Call it a genetic defect in humans, but one of either the forward or back buttons won’t be easily accessible depending on whether you’re right or left-handed.

The only other problem I have with the mouse concerns the scroll wheel. This is purely personal preference, but the lack of ‘bumps’ or ratchet effect makes it difficult to accurately control. For example, changing weapons in games is difficult because you can’t feel when a change will happen, or if you’re using the wheel to scroll a PDF page by page, it is difficult to know when you’re going to advance by a page or perhaps more.