Since the MX Master has horrible battery life and bad responsiveness in congested environments, I was wondering if there is a good alternative to it.
What I need is a wired mouse with sideways scrolling and navigation buttons. It should also work out of the box without any special drivers or software. If it has free-wheeling scrolling like some of Logitech’s mice that would be nice too but not strictly necessary.
If you don’t mind the ridiculous looks, some of those modular gaming mouses might work
microsoft business mouse is aight
I can’t really help with finding you a mouse but I can give you some tips.
I personally own mx master and in my experience if I play games it can survive the whole week, and for normal browsing about 2 weeks.
The sensor in the mouse however for detecting if the mouse has charge left is really bad. It tells you literally at most 1 min before shutting down.
About the scroll check if your applications support side scroll. For example office and browsers support it but Matlab (a software I worked with for some projects) doesn’t.
Also in MS office the scroll was too fast which you can fix but then it gets super slow in libre office and in the browsers.
The free wheeling is a must if you ask me. After 2 years of using this mouse this is the best feature and saves a lot of time.
Move the receiver with a cheap USB extension and solve battery life and latency issues both
Free scrolling is amazing. Sometimes I forget and when I go to use other mice it’s terrible.
I have the DasKeyboard 4 Professional with two USB 3.0 ports at the top right where I plugged my receiver in. It’s literally as close as possible but my battery life is at best 10-14 days of daily business day use. (Not anywhere near the claimed 40 days.)
The reason for the latency probably has to do with the crowded 2.4 GHz spectrum in my apartment building where there are lots of WiFi networks and two or three Bluetooth devices in range. So nothing I can really change there.
This is what I am talking about, that’s horrible!
My old notebook mouse (Logitech VX Nano) was the first mouse with their nano receiver, long before they started calling it the “Unifying” adapter. It was quite small compared to the MX Master and was powered by two AAA batteries. It also had a laser sensor which helped with battery life I assume. Anyways, that mouse lasted me easily several months without changing the batteries, even though I used it every day for several hours.
How can a mouse maybe double the size have such a small battery? If you check out pictures of people who took it apart, you can see how they could have easily put a battery double the size in there. Since my warranty expired, I might take it apart at one point and put a new, bigger battery in there if I don’t find a good wired replacement.
Don’t get me wrong but I don’t like anything from MS in my setup. The one mouse I tried before wasn’t that great too but there might be different ones in the meantime.
I know, I use it quite often too but I would give it up if I wouldn’t have the issues with my MX Master.
Been using my original USB 1.0 model for ages. No accounting for the newer models though.
Maybe look at the logitech g500
If you’re not averse to ebay buys, this podel is a solid, cheap, no frills workhorse:
logitech 830524-0000
(as are the aforementioned pre-2010 models of MS business mouse)
This model is really solid, though it has a trackball (regular mouse still works fine though):
that’s my range of experience with mice, most others I’ve used have disappointed. There may be RGB gamer meme models that perform well, but typically they range chintzier on the build quality scale.
No it’s not. Those old mice were with AAA or AA batteries that you had to buy every time to replace. You can easily leave the mx master plugged in your laptop and it will be with endless charge … and if you unplug it you have like 1 week to plug it again, so whats the big fuss about the battery life ?
Do you have latency problems with the MX master or with your old mouse ?
If it is with the MX master yeah OK that is a problem and you should look for another mice.
Edit:
So I suppose you are looking for a mouse with linux support ? Well good luck with that.
There is only one button that you cant use on linux by default on the MX master which by the way if you program with the drivers in Windows to do something different than the default and you switch to another computer it will be again the default and you will have to install drivers for the new computer to be able to use it.
And btw:
Plug it in 2.0 port to try if its better.
When you said
I thought you were working in a cubicle with lots of people around you which are using bluetooth devices.
Well it seems you are talking for a home computer for which I am pretty sure the reciever is pretty much enough for the mouse to work without problem unless you have your keyboard 20 m away from the mouse.
If you are still in warranty talk with Logitek because it may be a problem with their mouse and you can get a replacement. I am sure about the above because I myself was living the last year with 50 Wi-FI-s in my building it was so overwhelming that my own router could not get signal to the end of the other room … of a 2 room apartment and it was placed on the wall between the 2 rooms. And my mice worked fine without any problems there … ( btw my roommate had also bluetooth mouse and his desk was right next to mine. )
Why wouldn’t you use rechargeable batteries? That’s what I used and even buying non-rechargeable ones would be okay to replace few times a year.
Apart from the fact that this kind of defeats the purpose of having a wireless mouse, it doesn’t really solve my problem with latency.
Don’t get me wrong, I am by no means a gamer or anything but even on my simple 1080p 60Hz display it’s noticeable enough to be annoying.
It’s the MX Master. I don’t own the VX Nano anymore since it broke unfortunately.
That’s okay, I can use all the features I need currently on Linux. Like I said, I just need sideways scrolling and navigation buttons. Those worked out of the box with almost all mice I used before that had those.
Since the receiver itself is pure USB 2.0, I don’t see how this can make a difference. The only thing I can think of would be the controller, but there are no other devices connected except the keyboard which works in non-n-key-rollover mode without any noticeable delay. I might still try it but I don’t see how it can help.
Like I said, I am unfortunately not in warranty anymore, which is why I might solve the bigger issue by replacing the battery with a bigger one.
What about the M500? I found that one today and it seems to have some rudimentary sideways scrolling plus navigation buttons.
never used one personally, and logitech is pretty hit or miss tbh.
Found a few reports on the net that when the receiver was connected to the USB 3.0 it had problems.
Wasn’t Corsair supposed to have a wireless mouse that had a wireless charging mousepad?
EDIT: Yeah it was at Computex
G700S is the MXMaster with a few more buttons. You can use it wirless, or plug it in USB and use it wired. I love it.
If you can find them for a reasonable price they really are fucking fantastic. I have 2 of them.
Wife has one of these bad boys. bretty gud imo
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826197148
At work I’m using the G500 at home I switch between the G600 and G900 depending on what im doing. If you wanted a really good wireless and wired mouse the G900 is among the best I’ve used. I’ve tried the G700 and found it to be awful for ergonomics for me. The 600 isnt amazing either for ergonomics. If you couldnt tell I have a bit of a thing for logitech mice.
Bottom line. If you can afford it G900, if not G502. G500 if you can find a decent price on one but since they were discontinued this is unlikely.
This is a non issue with logitech G series since the configuration can be stored on the mouse. Super handy if you use different machines with the same mouse.