They wanted the mouse to have a name like “Microsoft® Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000” but they accidentally used the wrong encoding and the name was invalid. Because they already made thousands of devices without properly testing them, the “obvious” solution was to patch the Bluetooth stack on every single computer in the world to fix this issue. It’s the only Bluetooth device released in computer history that requires this.
I’ve got a lot of time for Microsoft hardware. I remember around 2000 when if you wanted a mouse or keyboard you basically had to buy whatever abomination Logitech was flogging at the time. Then Microsoft came along and started making stuff that was actually a little sexy.
The WMO was the pinnacle of gaming mouses at the time and it was just an ugly office mouse everyone had around.
I still have one because it was so coveted and they stopped producing/providing it.
microsoft sidewinder x4 was a great keyboard. Too bad they stopped making them.
I still have my X6, with the modular numpad you could stick to either side.
Although nowadays I only use it for my test bench at home. That thing was truly ahead of its time.
Like this https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EOhVKW_UUAATi4K.jpg:large
Best keyboard I ever had. Well, top 3.
It was Synaptics that introduced competition to Logitech.
My kid just had an issue with his Logitech wireless mouse right clicking with both buttons!
I looked in settings and then I used the mouse on Linux and windows and got the same effect. It turns out Logitech mice use piece of shit button switches.
But no problem I fixed the problem in like 5 minutes once I knew what the problem was. I gave my kid a wired mouse temporarily. Then I went to Amazon and searched for wireless mice. No more Logitech for me thanks.
I’ve been using the same Logitech 502 mouse for around 7 years now, with a lot of hours of FPS games. It wasn’t cheap, could this be a case where the inexpensive thing becomes more expensive in the long run?
They use shit switches but their wireless chipset is the best. The battery life is years instead of weeks and it’s always responsive like if it was wired. My HP Bluetooth mouse depletes its battery 20x faster than my Logitech Bluetooth mouse and most importantly when it goes in the sleep mode (around after 15 mins) it needs a click to wake up + it takes a couple seconds to reconnect. Infuriating.
That’s the problem. A mouse is currently not a user serviceable item. Remember the days of the rubber ball mice?
They wanted a mouse subscription system? Well they got it and I’m out. Their 1 year mouse stinks.
It took me 20-30 minutes to open up my G502 and install new switches. Of course, you probably want to have some soldering experience to do this, but if it’s already unusable… why not try? (assuming you know someone who owns a soldering iron)
I bought an Incott G24 recently, which is a Chinese clone of a Zowie EC2. The software is shit (I set it up once and never used it again) but it has hotswappable switches for M1/M2 which is something I’d love to see in mainstream mice, but they would lose money for it, so it’ll never happen.
I had a Microsoft mousr in the 90’s (9 pin serial, ball), that frankly was better than any other mouse at the time.
I think I read somewhere that they were one of the top Linux contributors back then because of all the device drivers they supplied.