The Eclipse Touch mouse from Saitek doesn’t look like your everyday mouse -- but it aims to take the place of it. Made of sleek, brushed aluminum, the Eclipse has is a three-button mouse with a twist: It has a touchpad in place of a scroll wheel that can also be used for navigating web pages. This laser mouse has a longer than usual learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, it can be quite fun to use.
At a Glance
The Good: Cool design, fun to use
The Bad: Touchpad can go a bit haywire when scrolling fast, doesn’t come with Bluetooth receiver
Bluetooth Required!
First things first -- you need integrated Bluetooth in your computer to operate this mouse. To check if you have it, go to your Control Panel and see if there's a Bluetooth menu there. If not, you can buy a universal Bluetooth adapter (I picked one up for less than $2 on Amazon)
and then pair it . Pairing it wasn't too hard, although I did have to do it each time I turned the computer on and off -- kind of a drag.
I wished the company had packaged it with a Bluetooth adapter -- it's not often that you have to hunt down your own receiver for a wireless peripheral. The other pairing annoying was that the on/off button is the same as the pairing button, so it took me a few tries to get it paired without turning the device off.
Lookin’ Good
The Eclipse kind of looks like someone sliced off the bottom half of a mouse. The company calls it an ergonomic design -- remember that there are no universal standards for ergonomic computer mice -- but I will admit that it was more comfortable to use than I expected. I used it for almost two weeks and never experienced any wrist or hand pain. As with most non-traditional mice, there is always a learning curve.
Scroll Baby, Scroll
The touchpad scroll button can take some getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, it sure can be fun (if you're the nerdy type like me). I frequently rave about Logitech's Hyper-fast scrolling abilities, and this has similar capabilities. The only downside is that it can be a bit more difficult to control the fast scrolling. I frequently found myself scrolling past when I had intended to hit. This, naturally, got to be pretty frustrating, and I was disappointed that additional usage didn't improve my abilities.
Touchpad Bonus Button
Not only does the mini touchpad between the left and right buttons act as a scroll wheel, but you can also use it to navigate through web pages. If you want to go back a page, you click the touchpad and move the mouse to the left. If you want to go forward, you click it and move to the right. If you want to open a browser, you click and move up; if you want to refresh the page, you click and move down. Since the Eclipse has no extra programmable buttons, this feature is an important one to have. I occasionally accidently refreshed a page without meaning to, but this happened much less often than I expected, and it almost never happened the more I got used to the mouse.
Bottom Line
The Eclipse Touch mouse is one cool-looking mouse, and it's a heck of a lot of fun to use. I'm not sure its flat form factor would fly with a graphic designer or serious gamer, but I suspect your everyday Internet browser would enjoy showing off. And for a $59.99 price, that's who this will probably appeal to.
Disclosure: Review samples were provided by the manufacturer. For more information, please see our
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