Independent Benchmarking System for Mice

Heartless Gamer writes "Why benchmark a mouse? From ESReality; "In this environment where performance is king, it's ludicrous to think that mouse performance has never been measured for reviewing the products. Imagine reviewing the latest graphics card in the same way. Without benchmarks, reviewers would have to resort to loading up their favourite game and commenting on how their frag count improved. You would have no way to compare NVIDIA and ATI cards apart from the quality of the packaging. Without benchmarking, graphics card reviews would be almost entirely useless. So why do we put up with mouse reviews that are just as useless?""

Re:Duh

[eebra82]

...Which is why you go to the store to check out which one fits your hand. The people who read the reviews are often gamers and often hardcore gamers who want to know which mouse fits their needs, no matter how small the difference is.

Although I agree with you that the comfort is the most important aspect of today's mice, it is only ignorant to assume that everyone thinks the same way. After all, when _some_ people buy a car, they want one that looks and feels good but forget about what's under the hood. The same situation can be applied to mice, because not everyone need to know what's under the hood, but some want to.

Last but not least, what the article suggests is quite correct. A benchmark of a mouse does require proper benchmarking tools and so far, we've only had reviews that measure the looks and the software. I do however disagree with the author of the article, because comparing benchmarks of graphics cards to benchmarks of mice is just wrong. People who buy graphics cards want to know how fast their games will run, while almost no one who's purchasing a mouse wonders if their mice can read info of a surface at 100 miles per hour.

Ambidextrous Mice

[gknoy]

I wholeheartedly agree!

While I'm not left-handed, I swap between right and left hands at work, to help prevent/minimize RSI effects. I go into computer stores, and see all these funky right-handed mice, and sigh.

I love my Razer, at home.
At work, I'm very happy with this (wired) Logitech mouse.

There is a benchmark

[perkr]

There is something called ISO 9241-9 - Ergonomic requirements for office work with visual display terminals - Part 9: Requirements for non-keyboard input devices. It covers mouse performance, and a metric called throughput (TP). Its validity is a matter of considerable debate. You can read the following technical report [ibm.com] from IBM Research for much more information. There is also a recent article in the Journal of Human-Computer Studies 61:6, 2004 by the same author on the same topic.