Gaming Performance

Loading up Call of Duty: United Offensive, we wanted to see how this mouse performs under FPS gaming conditions. After adjusting the mouse sensitivity slider at first startup (and factoring in the lightness of the mouse), we got to the point of feeling comfortable with the mouse tracking. We decided not to play on a mousepad, opting for the wider area of a bare tabletop. The slick foot pads definitely help in this department, making movements effortless.

Once the fragging begins, the ML100 was up to the task. The tactile scroll wheel help to switch between weapons quickly – giving feedback at every turned notch. The aiming is also very precise, good for careful sniping and likewise close encounters around the corner with an automatic weapon

One thing that bothers us more than it should, is the distance from the surface the sensor was tracking motion. We noticed it much more when we used a mousepad, but basically, when we lift the mouse to re-center or re-position it, the sensor still registered many of the moves caused by the action of lifting and putting down the mouse. This distance was much higher than the MX1000, maybe 3 / 4 inches. These sharp motion ‘jolts’ caused us to be fragged more than a few times because the in-game point-of-view got randomly twisted and turned, forcing the player to sometimes face the ground when facing an opponent.

The two large mouse buttons made for easy access for ‘fire’ and ‘aim down the sight’ functions. Overall, we were impressed with this mouse in a gaming situation. We played maybe 10-12 hours with this mouse over a span of a few months. Once we overcame the ‘high-tracking’ problem mentioned above, there really is no flaw to this unit.

Rear of the red ML100 Laser Mouse

Right side - rubber-like grip is matte black

Front-end of the ML100 mouse

Top-down view

Size, in relation to CD

Left side, with large thumb-rest area

Daily office tasks

The 1600dpi sensor seems to do its job very well in day-to-day tasks such as graphic design and web surfing. The only issue we had was that due to its lightness, we sometimes moved the mice too fast around the surface. We were used to heavier cordless mice. To combat this, we turned the mouse sensitivity slider down – making the mouse have more controlled movements while still keeping it very accurate.

Doing sensitive operations in Photoshop was also effortless with this mouse, even on a rough surface like a tabletop.

We did not install the software that enabled the middle thumb button on the mouse. As far as we knew, this was only to allow the user to switch between tasks easily. Well, for us, nothing is as good and as fast as the venerable “Alt + Tab” combo, so we felt no need to install the Optorite software.

Even though this mouse was a champ in Windows, there was no denying that we preferred the weight and feel of a cordless mouse. We are just too accustomed to it.