With every new product and revamped lines, Apple never cease so amaze us. So much so that their announcements attract a huge amount of attention and people flock to their nearest store in order to try out the latest update. I went down to the flagship store on London’s Regent Street to have a play with the new Magic Mouse.
First Impressions
We’ve come to expect nothing less than ‘sleek’ and ‘shiny’ from Apple, and the Magic Mouse is no exception. Clean lines and a crisp shade of white makes the mouse stand out from its counterparts. The weight feels no heavier than the Mighty Mouse yet it manages to make itself feel more robust, proving to feel less plastic-like than its predecessor. Compared to other mice on the market, the Magic Mouse definitely looks to be the flattest, which has its pros and cons. It can make for easy movement, helping your wrist sit without the discomfort of long periods of bending, or it can prove difficult when scrolling without a nice sized curve to take the force of your fingers.
Multi-Touch
I was looking forward to trying out what is now, very basically, a handheld touchpad. Of course, Apple like to make things the easiest they could possibly be so this mouse without the ‘nipple’ should be far simpler to use. One thing though…after being so used to holding the Mighty Mouse so firmly in my hand in order to scroll without budging itself off the desk, I’m tempted many times to use the Magic Mouse much like the trackpad and just rest my hand on it lightly. Because of its light weight and flatter body, budging was at its maximum and I had to keep reminding myself to keep holding on whilst I scrolled! Here the flatness compared to the Mighty Mouse caused some unnecessary problems. It was quite hard to position my hand in the right way in order to keep hold of the sides and scroll whichever way without needing to re-position or without the mouse moving, not a major problem but one that makes my wrist want to lie loyally with the Mighty Mouse.
The two-button click is as normal, and it’s always helpful to have that left-handed assignment if needed. I do like it when companies have all their users in mind. Two-finger swipe is also pretty simple, making it easy enough to pass back to previous history and forward again, though I’m not a huge fan of putting too much into one very sensitive product. 360 scroll seems really handy compared to the stickiness of the Mighty Mouse, which frequently irritated me. The loss of the ‘nipple’ makes for a smoother experience, albeit quite a flat one. If you’ve got big hands, beware!
Overall Rating – 4/5
Whilst I’m all for Apple’s obsession with smooth and shiny, I can’t get fully on board with their insistence on making everything thinner and flatter. It might be the way forward with technology becoming more slimline, and the constant competition on who can make the smallest of whatever, but a satisfactory browsing experience must be at the comfort of your hand. The flatness was almost too much for my wrist to cope with, forcing me to keep re-positioning my hand at every scroll and my fingers to release the mouse instead of holding on. This, to me, was its only con. Overall, browsing Macgasm has never been so easy ;)
