Microsoft Comfort Optical Mouse 3000

[Computer Hope Admin]

Recently got the Microsoft Comfort Optical Mouse 3000 and just have to say it's a terrible mouse. If you're an avid middle-clicker like I am in Internet browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, good luck, it often takes several middle-clicks to get it to recognize one middle-click.

This also appears to be a common complaint from other users who've purchased this mouse.

It's cheap so I guess I get what I paid for and I guess wouldn't be bad if you never planned on using the wheel.

[soybean]

Hmm, I find your comments interesting since I have one of them; I bought it about 2 months ago.  I'm using it with Windows 7 RC.  Actually, I had not noticed the problem you mentioned because my use of the wheel has been only for vertical and horizontal scrolling and, for that, it seems to work fine.  But, after reading your comments, I tried pressing/clicking the wheel to invoke the function assigned to it when used in that way and I see what you mean.  It seems to not respond well when using it that way. 

However, I've been experimenting some with it and I get the impression holding my finger in a certain way when pressing down on the wheel seems to affect its responsiveness.  It seems that, since the wheel is designed for horizontal scrolling, pressing down to click rather than pressing sideways to scroll horizontally must be done just right because a slight sideways pressure seems to confuse the mouse. 

Here's one technique that seems to work better.  I hope you try it and let me know whether you notice any improvement in its responsiveness.  When you want to click the wheel, arch your finger more so that it's only pressing right at the front of the wheel; your finger should be touching the mouse right up at the front end of the wheel opening, not on top of it.  Then, press, or pull, somewhat backward, as opposed to a downward pressure on top of the wheel.  I find that mine works better when I use that technique.

[evilfantasy]

I got this a few months ago along with a few other things so it was free shipping. No issues and they usually last a few years. Not bad for the price.

[soybean]

I got this a few months ago along with a few other things so it was free shipping. No issues and they usually last a few years. Not bad for the price.

That one has a very good overall rating by user reviews. I believe I even looked at it before I bought the Microsoft Comfort Optical Mouse 3000.  But, I wanted a mouse with horizontal scroll and the Microsoft Comfort Optical Mouse 3000 has that. I bought it at the local OfficeMax store. I had a coupon for $10 off on any purchase over $20.  Their regular price on the mouse was $24.95; I used the coupon for $10 off. 

[soybean]

Further practice with clicking the wheel on the Microsoft Comfort Optical Mouse 3000 confirms what I previously said about technique that seems to work best with this mouse. Here's an image which I've annotated to try to visually illustrate the technique.



If you place your figure right in the front or back crevice of the wheel slot and press at either of those points, it seems to work better than pressing somewhere on top of the wheel. If pressuring at the back, some forward pressure works best; if pressuring that front, some backward pressure works best. At least, that's been my experience with it. 

Of course, there's always the possibility of a faulty mouse being the cause of problematic behavior. And, of course, clicking the wheel should work equally well by pressing down on any point on the wheel. With my Logitech mouse, I can do just that.  But, in fairness, the Logitech mouse is a more expensive mouse.

[BC_Programmer]

you know what though- I bet dissassembling and investigating the exact physical configuration inside the mouse might help determine why that is the case.

For example, from my experience, the mousewheel is setup so that one side of the "pivot" pushes down on a button. The horizontal scrolling feature I can only guess is managed via the same sort of opto-mechanical mechanism that recognizes scroll wheel detents. The actual feature is implemented via a small infrared laser that was "stopped" by a circular wheel with small holes inside. I have no idea how it detected the direction of travel though.

[Allan]

I'm a big fan of Logitech Wireless products and have the Revolution Mouse on several systems and absolutely love it.

[soybean]

you know what though- I bet dissassembling and investigating the exact physical configuration inside the mouse might help determine why that is the case.

Yes, that would probably provide some understanding of how it works internally but I don't want to disassemble the mouse.  I'm afraid that might be the end of it.

For example, from my experience, the mousewheel is setup so that one side of the "pivot" pushes down on a button. The horizontal scrolling feature I can only guess is managed via the same sort of opto-mechanical mechanism that recognizes scroll wheel detents. The actual feature is implemented via a small infrared laser that was "stopped" by a circular wheel with small holes inside. I have no idea how it detected the direction of travel though.

I have no problem with the horizontal scrolling feature (via the tilt-wheel) of this mouse.  And, I believe that was not an issue in the original post; his issue is with the clicking behavior of the mouse, not it's scrolling behavior. And, that's the issue I've been focusing on in my replies.

[BC_Programmer]

I have no problem with the horizontal scrolling feature (via the tilt-wheel) of this mouse.  And, I believe that was not an issue in the original post; his issue is with the clicking behavior of the mouse, not it's scrolling behavior. And, that's the issue I've been focusing on in my replies.

Oh I know; but, maybe as you've stated the issues with clicking might be a result of the addition of the horizontal scrolling- the mouse get's "confused"

[evilfantasy]

Did you install the software that came with it? You can sometimes tweak the settings for better performance with that rather that the normal mouse and keyboard settings included with all versions of Windows.

[soybean]

Did you install the software that came with it? You can sometimes tweak the settings for better performance with that rather that the normal mouse and keyboard settings included with all versions of Windows.

I did.  I don't know whether Nathan (CH Admin) installed it.  And, yes, I've looked closely at the tweaking options in the software.  So, my assessment is that the Microsoft Comfort Optical Mouse 3000 is simply not designed as good as it could be for wheel clicking; in other words, this is a hardware/design flaw, not something that can be corrected via software settings. 

So, going back to my post with the image in it, pressing the wheel at the points identified there seem to work best when clicking the wheel.  As I said there, "clicking the wheel should work equally well by pressing down on any point on the wheel. With my Logitech mouse, I can do just that." 

[Computer Hope Admin]

I got this a few months ago along with a few other things so it was free shipping. No issues and they usually last a few years. Not bad for the price.

Yeah looks like a good mouse for the price. Only issue is no back (thumb button), which I use almost as much as the mouse wheel button.

Further practice with clicking the wheel on the Microsoft Comfort Optical Mouse 3000 confirms what I previously said about technique that seems to work best with this mouse. Here's an image which I've annotated to try to visually illustrate the technique.
...
If you place your figure right in the front or back crevice of the wheel slot and press at either of those points, it seems to work better than pressing somewhere on top of the wheel. If pressuring at the back, some forward pressure works best; if pressuring that front, some backward pressure works best. At least, that's been my experience with it. 

Of course, there's always the possibility of a faulty mouse being the cause of problematic behavior. And, of course, clicking the wheel should work equally well by pressing down on any point on the wheel. With my Logitech mouse, I can do just that.  But, in fairness, the Logitech mouse is a more expensive mouse.

Using your technique to get the middle click working does seem to help, but there are still several times the mouse wheel button doesn't get recognized. I also thought that maybe this could be a bad mouse and bought another one of these before writing this review and both mouse act the same.

you know what though- I bet dissassembling and investigating the exact physical configuration inside the mouse might help determine why that is the case.

May do this since I believe I can only return one of the two of these I have since I no longer have the receipt or box for the first.

Did you install the software that came with it? You can sometimes tweak the settings for better performance with that rather that the normal mouse and keyboard settings included with all versions of Windows.

Yeah installed different versions of the Microsoft Intellimouse software and all seem to have the same issue. Based off how the button feels and other comments I've read I think this is a physical issue and not a software issue.

[patio]

Have you hurled it at the wall and re-booted yet ? ?

[2x3i5x]

Microsoft Comfort Optical Mouse 3000. I used to have one before I got a wireless mouse.

Why didn't you set up the red magnify button to be a middle click button?

That's what I did and it's much better than the middle click attempts.

[evilfantasy]

Have you hurled it at the wall and re-booted yet ? ?

I've only done that once. It actually helped too. The mouse stopped working completely so I went and got a better one...