Summary: This is a fine mouse with good button feeling/action but three of the buttons are all but unusable.
I would definitely recommend to left-handers (heck, what choice do have for contoured mice?). Fair programmability (see below). Some interference (jiggy movement) from cordless phone (switch channels to eliminate). Don't let my detailed gripes stop you from buying. I'm hoping the marketing beanies at Logitech see this and make effective change for future products.
Pluses:
Action of buttons is good. Forward/Back buttons are solid and feel good. The fact that the middle wheel has tilt buttons (tilt left and tilt right are separately programmable) is a bit plus! Those tilt buttons are really nice and the action is very good on them.
Minor Gripes:
The wheel button is WAY to stiff. You can forget it's there, basically (read on for why that is).
No model markings. ANYWHERE! Ten years from now when you need new drivers for Windows 8, you'll never remember the model number. I had to use my label maker to affix a label to the back side of the battery cover.
Reconnect feature (presumably to swith RF channels?) not very discoverable in the documentation. You have to search for connect.exe and run it to eliminate interference from other RF sources (cordless phone, cell phone, etc.).
No mechanical on/off switch. Be sure to take the batteries out if you go on vacation!
Plus/Minus and Mute buttons are just a little too small and placed to forward for my liking. You get used to it though.
Major Gripe - Programmability:
Programmability is seriously lagging. I've had many programmable mice over the years, and this one is good, but fails to live up to the potential, or even past versions of Logitech mice. If you thought "Hey! lots of buttons. I can program all my macros!" - forget it. First-
1) Unless you are totally wowed by the Mail and IM notification/activate buttons then fine. But for the rest of us, forget they are there. They are NOT PROGRAMMABLE! The mail button will only ever map to the default mail application as specified in Windows. You can only specify IM applications that are installed. You can't make either of these buttons do custom actions.
2) YOU CANNOT CREATE MACROS for the mouse buttons. You can assign a single keystroke or keystroke combination, but you can't do something like "Alt + Tab, Right Arrow, Enter"
3) There is a list of "Other" tasks you can assign to buttons, but there are not many choices, certainly not as many as Logitech software in the past has presented. The choices are:
Back, Close, Copy, Cruise Down, Cut,
Do Nothing, Document Flip, Double Click,
Drag Lock, Left Click, Maximize, Middle Button,
Minimize, Page Down, Page Up, Paste,
Redo, Start Menu, Unassigned, Undo
(I don't know what the difference between Unassigned and Do Nothing!)
Thanks much for AutoKeys because you can't program keyboard plus mouse clicks with the Logitech software or Windows (Aside: the Ease of Access center in Windows is a joke for not including keyboard macros).
What happened to the old Run Program option? What happened to Switch Windows (Document Flip brings up the crazy Aero 3d thing)? What about a macro editor for performing multiple tasks? My $39 text editor has a macro editor (UltraEdit: GO GET IT NOW!).
4) The middle wheel button is unusable. It is too stiff and that alone makes you not want to use it (it's at least four times as stiff as the other buttons. Yeah, I measured this precisely! Sure, I did, er, um...) But the real issue is that if you program the wheel tilt buttons (left and right), which are a dream to use by the way, you MUST ASSIGN THE MIDDLE WHEEL BUTTON TO THE "DO NOTHING" ACTION. This is because the tilt buttons take little force to actuate, but the wheel button takes way more force. So, no matter how hard you try, you will set off one of the tilt button actions instead of the wheel button action. Just accept that the wheel button is totally useless and you'll be fine.
Get more detail about Logitech MX 610 Cordless Laser Mouse (931350-0403).
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