A week ago I dropped my Powerbook!! It broke the hinge and my mouse fell and broke also. I ordered a new mouse yesterday and it arrived today. It is a Microsoft Wireless Notebook Optical Mouse 4000. This is a small, 4-button mouse. Left and right click with a scroll wheel. The scroll wheel clicks, scrolls left and right. The horizontal and vertical scroll is pretty cool. The forth button is a tiny button that is well placed so you don’t hit it on accident. By default, it is a zoom button but I remapped it to do Exposé. The tracking on this mouse is much better than it was on my Kensington PocketMouse. The Kensington cost a bit more, was slightly bigger and had poorer tracking. Like the Kensington, though, the dongle goes into the mouse to turn if off and prolong battery life. Where the Kensington had a door that the dongle slid into (which is what broke) the Microsoft moust has the dongle clip into a slot in the bottom. A more robust design.

The mouse is something that Microsoft has done well all along. My only beef is when they have too many buttons in places you can’t avoid hitting. Kind of like this.