The Razer Pro Click V1.6 Mouse from Razer USA grabbed my attention last week, and they kindly sent me one to take a look at. What drew my attention to this rodent was the fact that it was not trying to be some clever cordless or bluetooth mouse. Instead it was just claiming to be a high quality precision mouse, with a seven foot cord!
I am from a design background and believe me, when I say I have tried lots of mice, I mean LOTS of mice. What I always look for initially is comfort in the hand and smooth tracking. The Pro V1.6 certainly fits very nicely into my hand (which is what I would term as medium sized). The mouse is of a flat design, but just curved enough to fit into the cup of your palm. Onto the tracking, and straight out of the box it feels really responsive. The weight is a little on the light side, but after an initial get-used-to period it feels a lot better. No drivers had been installed at this stage, so to be impressed already was a pretty good start.
The Pro V1.6 comes with a driver CD and although it is not necessary to install it, there are many advantages in doing so. The drivers support Mac OS X 10.3 or later and Windows XP, 2000, Me and 98. Concentrating on the Mac side of things, the driver was a breeze to install. Once installed system preferences allows you to assign different functions to the seven buttons and to choose between right or left handed use. The scroll wheel speed can also be changed, but where this mouse excels is in its precision and sensitivity when moving your pointer round the screen…
In the 'Sensitivity' tab of the preferences, apart from the double-click speed, you can also adjust how sensitive the mouse is to your movements. This ranges from 1-10 and really does make a difference to how the mouse behaves. You can also assign a button to 'On-the-fly Sensitivity' which allows you to hold this button in and adjust the sensitivity up or down with the scroll wheel, without having to go into your system preferences. There is also an advanced tab which allows even more control. You can set independent sensitivity for the X and Y axis of the mouse, set pointer acceleration and also switch between 400dpi and the full 1600dpi resolution.
All of these extra settings really do make the Pro V1.6 invaluable to designers, illustrators and graphic artists. Using this mouse in PhotoShop was a revelation, the amount of control and precision made image editing so much easier. If you are serious about your design work, then ditch the cordless mouse and get a proper mouse. The Razer Pro Click V1.6 Mouse is highly recommended.
Product: Razer Pro Click V1.6 Mouse
Price: £30 (average UK)
Supplied by: Razer USA Ltd
Contact: saleseu@razerzone.com