When you buy a desktop computer you get a new mouse, and unless the mouse design is as unfortunate as the hockey puck, it serves our basic needs. We barely notice the mouse unless it doesn’t work well. When I first saw the Razer mouse and Extreme Mat, I initially thought it was ugly, but because it was so different looking, I decided to see if different was better.

Work More Easily

Different turned out to positively affect my work quite a bit. For one thing, my wrist no longer tires when I perform precise actions in InDesign or make large movements in Safari. The Razer Diamondback is an optical mouse that tracks actions at 1600 dpi, twice that of Apple’s 800 dpi Mighty Mouse. The higher the dpi, the less fatigued one gets and you’re better able to perform precise tasks and eliminate large swooping movements which waste time and fatigue the body. I now regard this mouse as a thing of beauty and perfect design. The Razer Diamondback is a 4-button mouse with a lit scroll wheel. The scroll wheel allows you to scroll through long documents and web sites. The left button functions like the single-button mouse, the right button lets you bring up context sensitive menus like you’d normally see when holding down the Control key. The mouse comes with USB Overdrive, which is accessed through the System Preferences Pane. Through USB Overdrive, you can program the two side buttons to do a variety of tasks.

The optical Diamondback mouse can travel over almost any surface with good results. For the best results, pair it with the Razer Extreme Mat. The mat has two surfaces and you can chose the one that feels best to you. Made of anodized aluminum, it is rigid, easy-to-clean, and boosts the performance of the Diamondback mouse. Although I’m not a gamer, the Diamondback mouse and Extreme Mat are perfectly designed to enhance any gaming experience. They make great holiday gifts.

by P.A.M. Borys