Ok, stop what you are doing, and tell me what is in your hand. And I don’t mean that, you pervs. We are talking about mice here. The computer kind. Of all the input devices hooked to your computer, the mouse is easily the one used the most, yet gets the least amount of attention. We toss them around, shove them in the corner, and tend to forget they even exist. Until now.
Over the years, the simple mouse has evolved into something of a technological marvel. Gone are the days of the little ball and roller mouse, replaced by sensitive optical sensors, and even cordless optical rodents. The original optical mice were not without flaws, though. Early optical technology was not fast enough to interpolate movements of the hardcore gamer, resulting in less than stellar gaming performance. As we move into the next generation of optical mice, Logitech seems to have solved the gaming issues with their latest MX700 and MX500 mice. This review will look at the cordlessMX700 variant, while Quantum will take care of the MX500 chores later this month.
The new MX-series of mice from Logitech incorporates new optical technology, known as the MX Optical Engine. Catchy name, huh? This new optical engine uses advanced imaging techniques to improve the performance of the mouse, and eliminate the issues generally found in optical mice. Coupled with the new optics are sophisticated software algorithms, for processing the images used for mouse movement.
Before we move into the review, a quick lesson in the basics of optical mice is in order. If you already know this stuff, just skip to the next section and continue with the review. On the surface, an optical mouse looks just like a regular mouse, which is a good thing. Flipping the rodent over, though, reveals the first of many secrets. This mouse has no ball. Instead, you will see typically a red LED and very tiny lens. This lens is attached to what is basically a very small digital camera. As the mouse moves across a given surface, this camera is taking pictures..very quickly. These images are then fed to the digital signal processor (DSP), which uses those software algorithms to compare each image, and interpolate movement by analyzing the difference in each.
The heart of the MX700 is the image processing power of new MX Engine. This power is expressed in the amount of data the optics are able to gather and analyze, and in the case of the MX700, it is an amazing 4.7 megapixels per second. This translates into better images, which in turn offers increased sensitivity to movement. The sensor size of the new engine has also been increased, making the image size 80% larger than the next largest competing optical mouse on the market. Larger images give the DSP more information to work with, and again aid in determining movement. The resolution of the images is set at 800 dpi, and the marketing brochure claims that this helps users with larger (17″+) monitors move the mouse across the screen. Moving the mouse one inch on the desktop should result in 800 pixels of movement on the screen, without any additional mouse acceleration. This is pretty easy to test, and seemed to hold true when I tried side to side movements while measuring the actual mouse travel. The radio link between the mouse and the base reports at a rate of 125 times per second, which is the same polling rate as the standard USB port. This increase in polling rate required a faster data stream between the RF base, and the MX700’s data transmission rate is 2.5 times that of other current wireless technology. Before a signal can be sent to the base from the mouse, all of the data must be processed and prepared, and this delay was cut on half with the MX700, resulting in evenly spaced position reports from the mouse.
