Aopen Optical Mouse Review

I've always been a fan of the cheap OEM mouse.

There is just something so satisfying about "going through" a mouse every 4 months or so, and then being able to crack open a new one and saver that new mouse smell.

Now, depending on the state of the mouse on the way out, there are a couple of choices for what to do with it. If you're feeling sinister you can always pass of the dead and dying mouse to that annoying co-working in a strategic mid-coffee-hour raid. 'Frustrating' is the word for a mouse that will only move to the left ;-) Or, if you're feeling the need for a little showmanship there's always the 'mouse blaster'.

What you need to do is find a brick or cement wall in a not too populated area first. When the mouse 'blasts' apart you really don't want to take out anyone with plastic shrapnel. Once you've located the perfect spot, grab the mouse by the cable and start swinging it around. The faster you swing that dead mouse the better. When you can no longer swing that mouse any faster, that's the cue to slam it into the brick wall.

All things going as planned, that dead mouse should obliterate itself into many very tiny pieces. All that should be left are 6 wires and possibly a small patch of bent PCB. Be sure to watch out for that steel ball, you could kill someone David and Goliath style though!

The great tradition of mouse blasting may be in danger as mice like the Aopen Optical start to become more common. Optical mice you see, just don't wear out in the same incredibly annoying way that ball mice do. Sure the buttons or the rolly-wheel might wear out, but the optical gear just doesn't 'break' all that often - if ever.

What can you do? The three-button Aopen Optical wheel-mouse we tested was an OEM unit that cost us $28CDN and required no drivers under Win98SE at all. The wheel has that nice Logitech stiffness, and the left and right buttons are really fast. A major point for us right click > copy > right click > paste folks. The Aopen Optical mouse connects via USB or through an adapter to the PS/2 port.

The only really bad point we can see with this mouse surrounds the bottom half of it. For some reason Aopen have made the entire base of their optical mouse translucent. When that red LED lights up, the entire mouse looks like its' on fire. While it sounds cool, it gets to be a bit distracting after a while.

But hey, it's optical, it's really inexpensive, and it works without the need for drivers off a CD-ROM. Good mouse, good mouse.