[MW Forums]

Logitech has introduced its Revolution mice, which use the "MicroGear" scroll wheel that can adjust between free-spinning and ratcheted click-to-click modes. more

[gaefstan]

And keeping with the fine logitech mouse tradition - they're right handed again...
One of these days I wish they'd produce one of their higher end mice for us lefties.

[montgomery_burns]

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A single seven-second spin can yield as many as 10,000 lines in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. By comparison, itd take about 500 spins and seven minutes to span the same distance using a convention scrollwheel.

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I went to the web site and viewed the Flash demo. This seems nothing more than accelerated scrolling, which Apple already provides with the standard Mac mouse driver. The faster you move the wheel, the faster the page scrolls. I can achieve the same "Hyper-Fast Scroll Wheel" results with a Logitech mouse connected to my Mac, using only the standard Apple mouse support, and scrolling speed set to maximum in the Mac mouse preferences. When the same mouse is connected to a PC and using Logitech's own driver, the scroll wheel can only scroll the page for a fixed number of lines, no matter how fast you move the wheel.

[Peter Cohen]

The Revolution series use a physically different type of scrollwheel mechanism than other mice.

[sigma8]

yeah, it's "frictionless" and doesn't have those inane stop-points, which seem like a horrible idea anyway. It seems like those "clicks" in scroll wheels were designed to be used for web pages that only had maybe one or two page-downs worth of text in them, where each "click" was supposed to scroll through a single line of text.
And it's even more annoying in games.. trying to zoom in on something...and being constrained to these artifical zoom levels by the friction..
That said, I'd still like to bandy some criticism against Logitech for making yet more mice that don't support bluetooth.. Especially the laptop mouse. I mean, WTH? Even most PC laptops integrate bluetooth now, but Logitech still insists on forcing the world to use lame dongles.

[motley]

I just bought the Logitech G5 which I love.... but it is designed only for righties. It is still very usable but this new mouse looks very unusable for us lefties!!!! /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

[Netizen_Kane]

We've got scroll wheels, we've got the Mighty Mouse's scroll ball, and now we have this thing. Something I don't think I've seen is a scroll device on a mouse similar to IBM's Trackpoint "pencil eraser" pointing device. It could have advantages over all these others. Push in any of eight directions including diagonal scrolling just like the scroll ball. Push and hold in any direction for sustained scrolling without repetitive motions or the poor control of this free-spinning wheel. The further you push, the faster it scrolls. Overshot your target? Just point back in the opposite direction, a simple and quick motion. Too close to IBM's patents? Somehow spring-load the Mighty Mouse's ball so it has a self-centering force for the same effect.
Who knows, maybe somebody made something like this, especially some obscure brand (they're always trying new things). I've just never seen one.

[montgomery_burns]

All I'm saying is that the "hyper-fast scrolling" demo on the Logitech web site does not really have anything to do with the physical wheel design, since Mac OS already provides fast accelerated scrolling with regular mouse wheels. The free-spinning wheel vs. clicking wheel is an entirely different issue.

[garyi]

Hey keep on bitching but logitech do the best mice and I am getting me one! haha,

[Dan Frakes]

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This seems nothing more than accelerated scrolling, which Apple already provides with the standard Mac mouse driver. The faster you move the wheel, the faster the page scrolls. I can achieve the same "Hyper-Fast Scroll Wheel" results with a Logitech mouse connected to my Mac, using only the standard Apple mouse support, and scrolling speed set to maximum in the Mac mouse preferences. When the same mouse is connected to a PC and using Logitech's own driver, the scroll wheel can only scroll the page for a fixed number of lines, no matter how fast you move the wheel.

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As Peter noted, this is a completely different type of scroll wheel. It's a weighted wheel that spins freely. When you want to scroll a bunch of pages, instead of having to spin the wheel over and over, you just give it a good, single flick and it spins freely -- and scrolls very quickly and continuously.
I've been testing one of the new mice for a few weeks now, and I have to say that for me, it's been the biggest improvement in the mouse since the scroll wheel itself. I can scroll through pages of forum posts with a single flick of the finger. Going back to a "regular" mouse, with a standard scroll wheel, feels like going from a motorcycle to a bicyle /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Dan Frakes]

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That said, I'd still like to bandy some criticism against Logitech for making yet more mice that don't support bluetooth.. Especially the laptop mouse. I mean, WTH? Even most PC laptops integrate bluetooth now, but Logitech still insists on forcing the world to use lame dongles.

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You know, I used to say the same thing about many peripheral vendors; I've been a big proponent of Bluetooth. But over the past couple years I've tested many different wireless mice and keyboards, and I have to say that I'm no longer as critical of RF-dongle products. Sure, they require you to plug in a dongle. But they also work instantly -- no waiting for your Bluetooth mouse and keyboard to reconnect -- and, in my experience, RF is just as reliable, if not more so.
Each technology has advantages, but as long as the dongle is convenient -- for example, on the BenQ M310 Plus and the new Logitech portable mouse, the dongle is stored in the mouse itself -- I'm fine plugging in the dongle when I want to use the mouse. In fact, I find it to be less of a hassle at times than Bluetooth: Given that on a laptop, Bluetooth wastes battery power, I end up manually disabling Bluetooth when I'm not using it and then reenabling it when I need it.

[lhudd]

Yeah, remember those toy cars you had as a kid that you would shove them on the ground/table/dog/etc and they would "wind up" with a whirr and a flywheel device inside would keep them going for a long time? That's what I envision this thing doing. The difference between this and the mighty mouse super scroll mode is that you can set this thing going and STOP it with your finger when you get where you want to go. Much more convenience and control than just rolling it and getting several hundred or thousand lines of scroll. I imagine you get to the top of a long page, set the scroll in motion... and as it zips down the page you look for something of interest and stop it when you get there.
Very very cool. I think I had an Evil Kneviel motorcycle setup like that back in the day. I've always been a BIG fan of logitech, not only because they make the best peripherals, but also because they've supported the MAC when other's havent (notible exception being the 600 laser mouse which on the outside appears identical to the mouse in the logitech wireless keyboard and mouse for mac).

[bastion]

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Something I don't think I've seen is a scroll device on a mouse similar to IBM's Trackpoint "pencil eraser" pointing device. ... Who knows, maybe somebody made something like this, especially some obscure brand (they're always trying new things). I've just never seen one.

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IBM made one. (Or branded one they had made for them.) And I recall an off-brand one that had, essentially, a 1-dimensional trackpoint - a "wheel" that would "spin" as long as you were pushing it in either direction.
I guess the benefit this Logitech has over that is that the user doesn't need to keep applying pressure.

[OM_user]

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That said, I'd still like to bandy some criticism against Logitech for making yet more mice that don't support bluetooth..

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Totally agree. I was seriously thinking about getting one of these as I read through the article and looked at Logitech's pagebut then found it is STILL RF based. Come one Logitech! Give us more BT options. Though the dongle is small and convenient, why should we be forced to use up a valuable USB slot on our Macs or PCs to use their devices? I don't understand why they seem so opposed to making Bluetooth mice.