Natural Wireless Laser Mouse 6000

I had purchased a Logitech MX Revolution mouse when I purchased my Mac Pro. The MX is very comfortable and offers state-of-the-art functionality. I’d run into a bit of a problem with drivers, but that had been resolved by using Steermouse.

However, I’d unfortunately had an ongoing problem with the MX that’d I’d been unable to rectify; the wireless radio was susceptible to interference from Wifi, being located in the same 2.4GHz frequency range as 802.11b/g/n.

The interference caused the mouse to either fail to respond, or to jerk around erratically when large-scale data transfers were occurring on my wireless network. Moving to 5GHz 802.11n eliminated the problem, but then my g-only iPhone didn’t have network access. Bah.

Being just as pleased as it’s possible to be with the Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000, I decided to check out the companion mouse, the Natural Wireless Laser Mouse 6000.

The first thing to note about this mouse is that it’s not really designed for the laptop user. Firstly, it’s not Bluetooth, secondly, it uses quite a large radio transceiver, complete with a long USB cable. Perfect for my needs with the Mac Pro, but not something you’d want to haul around with a laptop.

Power is provided by a pair of AA batteries. The mouse has a low-battery indicator which turns green briefly when batteries are inserted to indicate that they’re good; it otherwise isn’t lit unless the batteries run low. The batteries seem to last for quite a long time.

The mouse has a pleasantly grippy, rubbery surface, much like an eraser; it feels quite good to me. The laser is very accurate, and movement is precise.

The ergonomic bit is immediately obvious in the height and angle of the mouse. Relative to other mice, it’s very tall, and quite sharply angled. As a result, the wrist is held in a neutral position when using the mouse. This is a bit odd at first; it feels very much like gripping a baseball. However, after a very short period of time one does begin to notice the comfort, to the point that using a regular mouse feels quite uncomfortable in comparison.

Let’s put it this way: after using this mouse for a few hours at home, I went back to the store and obtained a second one for use at work. It’s that comfortable.

Best of all, no Wifi interference.

Potential downsides:

• It’s a relatively large mouse. Individuals with large hands are going to like this mouse; those with small hands may find the forward and back buttons difficult to reach.
• As with many mice, it’s right-handed only.

While the mouse ships with an excellent driver, Steermouse also works perfectly with it. As I’m a huge Steermouse fan, I deinstalled the Microsoft driver, which thankfully ships with an uninstaller.

Truly, a great mouse, highly recommended.