After reviewing Logitech’s V450 Notebook mouse, I thought that it could get no better. The V450 had the slim design, long battery life, and laser precision that made it possibly the best notebook mouse of its time. Now we have the VX Revolution, which according to Logitech, is “The ultimate notebook mouse”. Ambitious, eh?
The VX Revolution is very similar to the V450 in size, which could be expected, as both mice are designed to be smaller than “desktop” mice. Unlike the V450, however, the VX is designed for right handers only, sporting a slightly tilted overall design and deep thumb groove on the left, complete with textured rubber grip. The mini 2.4GHz receiver fits into the body of the mouse, powering itself off when inserted, to save battery. The cavity for the receiver is covered, when not in use, by a plastic flap to maintain the curvature of the body. But what’s so “ultimate” about it, you ask? As far as I’m concerned, it’s all about the features.
VX features everything you’d expect in a high-end desktop mouse and more. Unlike the V450, VX has a scroll wheel (complete with side scrolling and center button), two thumb buttons, an extra middle “search” button, and a zoom switch closer to the front of the mouse. Upon seeing all of these buttons, I almost instinctively thought to myself “I’ll never use these buttons”. How often do I need to zoom in on a spreadsheet or image (using a program which supports Logitech’s software, of course)? Is it really all that much trouble to press control+F to search instead of clicking a mouse button? The beauty of the VX and Logitech’s software is that you can easily change the function of any mouse buttons. For instance, I was able to change the “zoom +/-“ switch to “volume +/-“, which I actually use quite frequently. In addition, I changed the middle “search” button to “mute”, which I also frequent. You can also change how sensitive the Windows cursor is on-screen, as some users will be switching from a ball or optical mouse (maybe 200 or 400dpi) to a laser mouse at 600+dpi. Of course the thumb buttons are a major plus in my book, as they make web browsing much easier, utilizing the “back” and “forward” function in any major browser, and also make great shortcuts in games, for instance to switch to your knife or to throw a grenade.
A huge selling point for this mouse, aside from its “high end desktop mouse” features, is the scroll wheel. The wheel on the VX is chromed with a textured rubber strip in the center, and can switch between two modes using a control on the bottom of the body. The first mode is what I call “old-school mouse” mode, which means the mouse wheel clicks as you turn it, and Windows reacts just as it would any other mouse. The other mode, however, is really quite spectacular. It changes the gearing from “click click click” to “whoosh”, if you will. You can give the wheel a spin and it will continue to spin (depending on how hard you spin it) for up to six seconds! Imagine how cumbersome scrolling through a large PDF or list is. You either have to drag that scroll bar on screen around, or scroll along … slow… ly… click… click… click… But with VX you can scroll as fast as you want and as precisely as you want. Without the constraints of the clicks of the mouse wheel, you can scroll as SLOWLY as you like as well, instead of making one click on the mouse wheel and scrolling 20 pixels on screen. Initially I was skeptical of this mode, but now I use it nearly all the time. It takes some getting used to, but I like having as much speed and control over my mouse wheel as I want.
When it comes right down to it, the VX Revolution is more than the ultimate notebook mouse. It’s also just about the best desktop mouse that you can get, which is how I use it personally (as a “portable” desktop mouse). The battery lasts about half as long as the V450, but it uses exactly half of the batteries (one AA). Even at “half” of the life, however, that’s still over 150 days of constant usage, which blows most other mice out of the water, especially when you consider how much more this mouse is capable of than pointing. In addition, it’s got a built in lighted battery monitor which glows green when you turn it on, much like the G7. At $80 it’s definitely not cheap, but I’d gladly pay that price for such a highly advanced and, more importantly, useful tool for my PC.
