best. scroll wheel. ever

April 4th, 2007


I think I can say without fear of hyperbole that the Logitech MX Revolution cordless mouse has the best scroll wheel ever. Seriously, I checked it out in a store about a week ago, and while I was put off by the $100 retail price tag, I was taken enough by the incredibly cool scroll wheel that I realized that at some point I’d drop some dough on one, for the scroll wheel alone.

And: $50 later/lighter, I’m glad I did. It looks like a remarkably ugly Klingon weapon — encrusted with 5 buttons and a thumb toggle, with battery indicators and lasers and shit — but make no mistake, what you’re really paying for here is the scroll wheel. You’re paying $50-100 for a scroll wheel. And if you’re anything like me, and I pray to God you’re not, you’re happy to do so; the scroll wheel has heft, weight to it, and thus suddenly your scrolling inherits smooth physics and momentum. You’ll find yourself scrolling pages for no good reason at all (enable Firefox’s “Smooth Scrolling” preference for even, um, smoother scrolling). It’s a wonderful design, and I highly recommend it.

~jeff



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  • Kerri

    Except, wah, it doesn’t work on a Mac. I have this mouse. I love it for playing WoW. But only on my PC. Boo hoo.

  • http://ldopa.net Jeff

    Kerri, I have to admit I’ve only personally tried it on my PC, but have you tried installing the Mac driver?

    ~jeff

  • Kerri

    You know what, you’re right. I realize that I am reacting to the wrong problem. :-) The problem is, it doesn’t work through my KVM. Maybe I’ll just have to get a second one…

  • tucker g perry

    jeff’s purchase of absurdly over-designed peripherals is not in the least surprising to anyone who knows him. What is surprising is that he is wasting this injection-molded Cadillac on his PC.

  • http://ldopa.net Jeff

    Inflammatory allegations indeed coming from the very man who graciously enabled my recent purchase of a LED-powered temperature sensitive faucet lightshow (review forthcoming).

  • http://blogarsay.blogspot.com Jennifer

    I bought that mouse but returned it because you can’t use the scroll wheel as a middle click. That sucks!

    But the frictionless weighted scroll is awesome.

  • http://ldopa.net Jeff

    Jennifer, I thought the same thing, then I realized if you turn off their “auto-shift” B.S. you can assign the middle button to “middle click”, which I agree, is so necessary in Firefox.

    This discussion may have crossed the rubicon of nerdy.

  • http://blogarsay.blogspot.com Jennifer

    Oh my. I might have to buy it now. Thanks for the tip!

  • tucker g perry

    Sorry, what would you use a third click for in FF?

  • http://ldopa.net Jeff

    Middle-click in Firefox opens a link in a new tab — or, closes a open tab if you middle click on it. It doesn’t sound that that useful, but it really is.

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  • Jesse

    my boss has one of these. every time i have to work on his computer, i walk away thinking the same thing. also, it’s a mac.

  • Ben

    It sounds as though it has a gear reduction system inside, coupled to a heavy weighted wheel. Like those “friction-driven” toy cars. I’m guessing that’s why they say it’ll spin for 7 seconds given a proper flick.

    I want to see one disassembled!

  • http://voice0reason.livejournal.com Voice0Reason

    Hmmm. Jeff writes this just when I’ve been thinking that it might be time for a cordless mouse. Must be kismet. Or some shit like that.

    Just this ONCE I won’t compare Jeff to the Nazis!

    (Sadly enough, the idea of being able to open a link in a new tab by middle-clicking on it sounds like it’d be really goddamn handy. Because of course it’s SUCH a chore to select “Open Link in New Tab” from the contextual menu. Either I’m really geeky, or really fuckn lazy.)