I’ve been using the Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse around three weeks now, so I feel like I’ve got a good idea of what I think about it.
Overall, it’s a great little mouse. Very portable, very simple – however it has one weak spot which really annoys me, though I should be used to it by now…
Here are the mice I use today from left to right:
Out of these three mice only the Wireless Mobile Mouse 3500 has good and consistent middle click capability. While the Arc Touch Mouse does actually support middle click, it’s not very good.
When you want to scroll (the equivalent of the mouse wheel) you slide your finger up and down the touch strip. I’m quite happy with this, it works pretty well. There’s even a vibration built in to give you some feedback. You can also tap at either end to page-up and page-down, or give it a swift swipe to enable kinetic scrolling to speed things up.
But to middle click you need to double tap right in the centre of this touch stip, and sometimes it just doesn’t seem to work. I find this most frustrating when trying to close multiple tabs in Visual Studio or Internet Explorer – you’re doing twice the clicks and half the time it doesn’t work as expected.
However, seeing as the magic mouse doesn’t even support middle click, I should be used to it by now. I just think it’s a shame that the touch strip isn’t a clickable button too. That would solve the problem.
Now that’s out of the way, lets get onto the good stuff. The mouse is small and light which suites me just fine – and it works really well with the strange way I hold a mouse (-90 degrees). The design is fantastic with a really nice touches like the magnetic dongle holder on the bottom.
Because the mouse flattens out, it’s really easy to fit into any bag. I’ve noticed an improvement here, because I used to use a Wireless Mouse 5000 which is still pretty small, but gives a noticeable bump in my work bag. This Arc Touch Mouse is a lot more sleek, which is very cool.
Overall I’d definitely recommend the Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse to people who like small mice. And finally, if you are worried that having a big gap is a problem for you, see if you can try it out in a store. I was worried at first but after a while I’ve really grown to like the light feeling.