I go through mice faster than a hungry snake. One day – out of shear boredom – I started counting how many times I clicked. I stopped counting at 3,000. Is it any wonder that the salespeople at Best Buy, Egghead and Shorties know my by name – and even call me when they get a new mouse in. Sad but true – I spend hours clicking away on my computer but that isn’t what kills them. I try to clean them and the wheels break or I whack them on the table to hard when they act up.

You Get What You Pay For

I found this for $9.99 at Amazon.com and decided to try it. I have had 17 mice so far and they have all ended up in my circular funeral home. I often wanted to start my own mouse museum but didn’t think I would get many visitors. I bought the cute Toy Story / Buzz Lightyear one, the funky metallic one and the wireless (no names mentioned) one. To this day the wireless one can not be found – I am assuming it is living somewhere with three of my remote controls – having some type of a sick demented electronics orgy.

I didn’t expect much for $9.99 – but this mouse is holding up just fine. In the past two weeks I haven’t had to slam it once to get it to work properly. I needed something with a wheel – I do some reward programs and having the ability to use the wheel instead of moving my wrist has cut down on my chiropractic visits. I wasn’t familiar with the Belkin name and there were no reviews on the site about it so I kind of dived into this purchase blindly.

I was used to a smooth scrolling mouse wheel – this one is a bit stiff and you can feel the segments clicking as you move the wheel. All in all I am impressed so far – but it’s only been two week. One thing that needs to be said – a mouse is only as good as yo9ur mouse pad. If you have a cheap mouse pad it will “shed” and you will end up with lint on the roller balls which will – of course – drastically cut down on the efficiency of the mouse’s ability to function properly. Like I said – I tried to clean the wheels and ended up breaking it.

The mouse has a nice design to it and it fits nicely in my hand. I am pretty sure this is a right handed only mouse since the curve is to the right. I have noticed that my wrist hurts less with this mouse than it’s predecessor – the wireless one. I am not sure if this has to do with the design or it being a little smaller in size.

This mouse is the Gold Series meaning it is the bare bones of the Belkin family. It features eight way scrolling but I have yet to encounter a page that big in order to try it out. The Silver Series mouse is metallic with a little more of a curve to it and has a smoother wheel movement. The Platinum Series is wireless and come in either standard slate or metallic. I wasn’t about to fork out big bucks on a mouse until I road tested the cheap one.

Since I am sort of a techno illiterate I wasn’t sure if this mouse came with a driver disc or not - and I was a little scared to open the box. Thankfully it was a simple ‘plug and go’ mouse. There is a driver disc but I didn’t need it. This can also be used on Mac’s but from what the manual says only one of the buttons works with that platform.

I am curious to see how long this mouse will last – I figure that if it can handle at least six month of my clicking – not to mention the kids wear on it – then it will be a great value. It’s been two weeks and everything has been smooth sailing so far – so I have to give this two thumbs up and recommend it to anyone in the market for a new mouse.




Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 9.99