The Best of Both Phone, and Tablet
Entered CNET Catalog: 04/25/2006
SKU: 0882224109499
Manufacturer: Microsoft Corp.
Manufacturer description
This wireless mouse features Microsoft's High Definition Laser Technology, which delivers more responsiveness and more precision, and enables smoother tracking on a variety of surfaces, even ones with unique finishes. Wireless Laser Mouse 5000 includes the Magnifier tool and a Tilt Wheel, making navigating, viewing and editing spreadsheets, documents and images easier than ever.Product summary
The good: Contoured design for both left and right hands; five customizable buttons; clear optical laser.
The bad: Hard-to-access side buttons; short, three-foot range; plastic is slippery; warranty information is difficult to find.
The bottom line: The Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 5000 is a good precision mouse for left-handers, but righties would be better off with a mouse designed for that hand.
Editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 06/01/2006
The Laser Mouse 5000 works with both Windows and Macintosh PCs and connects wirelessly via an included USB receiver. The mouse works as a plug-and-play device, but to customize the buttons and settings, you'll want to install Microsoft's IntelliPoint software, which is included on a disc. This software adds a tab to your regular mouse control panel. From there you can select buttons and customize them from a list of functions and tasks. You can customize the standard left and right buttons, the two buttons on the sides of the mouse, and the clickable four-way scrollwheel.
The mouse has a clear laser, so there's no red light as with most laser and optical mice, and it tracks at a healthy 1,000 dots per inch (dpi). That's great for any standard or professional task, although too low for many gamers, who may want up to 2,000dpi, as seen on the Logitech G5.
In our tests, the Laser Mouse 5000 wasn't ideally comfortable, and the plastic surface was noticeably slippery--the hand felt like it was struggling to stay on the mouse. Both of the side buttons are mounted for thumb use, which makes accessing the button opposite your thumb difficult; we found it easiest to press with the inner side of the third finger. We didn't notice any tracking errors or lag in our tests, though the Laser Mouse 5000 doesn't live up to Microsoft's claim of a six-foot wireless range; we got only three feet in our tests.
Support options for the Laser Mouse 5000 aren't as clear as they should be. The user manual doesn't say how long the warranty lasts, but if you dig around the software's help files, you'll find that it's an enormous five years--four years more than the industry standard. Someone should tell that to the tech support people, who, when reached by phone, said it had a 90-day warranty and received free support for only 90 days. If you're feeling lucky, you could try to navigate Microsoft's Byzantine support site, which offers FAQs and articles.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24out of 24 user reviews
You should avoid this product
Pros: Mouse is pretty robust with its nice design, it has a smooth scroll technology and is quite precise. Unlike its often-accompanying keyboard it does not disconnect too often and if you keep the receiver close it will not "go wild".
Cons: Unfortunately there are much more cons than pros - first of all, it is near useless on Windows Vista/7. You'd think a Microsoft mouse would be supported on Microsoft software but you'd be terribly wrong. There is a well known problem with its scrolling wh
out of 24 user reviews
A good mouse but..
Pros: Long battery life. Never had range issues
Cons: Durability: The left click button is starting to not register clicks. And as a gamer that is becoming very anoying.
out of 24 user reviews
Smooth, accurate but shape is neither here or there.
Pros: The thing I liked the most about this mouse is that the center wheel is completely silent when scrolling. I don't like noise from my mouse. The laser is very accurate and the two pads under it allows it to glide very smoothly over tables.
Cons: Side buttons are difficult to activate.Difficult position for fingers to reach.My hands are average size but I find mouse shape is size is too small for a desk mouse and too big for a travel mouse.
out of 24 user reviews
worst mouse ever!!!! Do not buy it!!!!
Pros: absolutely zero
Cons: Uncomfortable. Does not work if sits inactive for over a few minutes. you have to drag the mouse repeatedly back and forth across desk to get it to respond. does not work well on ANY surface. has limited range. batteries last a few weeks - not 6 mths
out of 24 user reviews
Garbage - Don't bother. Get a bluetooth mouse.
Pros: Nice design, not too heavy, Good lefty and righty.
Cons: Delayed left click. Left click only works 60% of the time, it took me 4 clicks to get my cursor into this box to type. The side buttons are too touchy. Constantly magnifying for no reason.Cursor tracking is buggy.
out of 24 user reviews
Just Forget it exists
Pros: Laser accurate movement
Cons: left click buggy after only two months, battery life is random, no off switch or button, productivity reducer, NOT FOR GAMERS (Even Windows Solitaire)
Now mind you it was wonderful for oh... 2 months but then degraded progressively into the worst mouse ever.
How many of you would want to left click on an application with the single click launch option in windows turned on and have between 1 to 5 copies of the application or document opening from ONE CLICK? No its not the Intelipoint crap, no its not vista, XP, or Mandrava Linux... They all do it and this is testing with a freshly replaced battery on 3 desktops and two laptops, if you want a mouse look ANYWHERE else, but NOT here.
out of 24 user reviews
Very good mouse for either hand
Pros: Great battery life, buttons in all the right places and easy to use on any surface. Fits very well in this lefty's right hand.
Cons: the magnifier comes on at inconvenient times
out of 24 user reviews
Where is my receipt?
Pros: Keeps paper from blowing away.
Cons: Routinely not responsive to motion or mouse clicks even while signal strength is reported as "max" (despite a receiver antenna that's as big as the mouse). Double clicks and scrolling appear to be particularly problematic.
out of 24 user reviews
Mouse difficult to scroll over surfaces, difficult to
Pros: Looks good
Cons: I hate the fact that you keep erroneously hitting the magnifying button. It's hard to avoid hitting it. The mouse is difficult to scroll on desktop, desk map or mouse pad.
out of 24 user reviews
Bad Location for Extra Button
Pros: Comfortable Mouse. Smooth Operation after getting the speed setting correct.
Cons: Bad location for extra buttons. I can't believe they actually decided to put them in the location that they are in.
out of 24 user reviews
Comfortable mouse if you have large hands
Pros: I have used this mouse for the last year now and it is well made and shows no sign of wear,the battery life is excellent and i find it comfortable to use and the scroll real nice and smooth.
Cons: Poor receiver only connects 70% of the time with one click of the mouse.
out of 24 user reviews
Great, if you put the receiver a foot away!
Pros: Comfortable, good battery life, no visible light
Cons: Horrible range!
out of 24 user reviews
Good mouse for switching to lefty
Pros: ambidextrous use works well
Cons: Is a little slippery
The mouse has a nice heft and I find the auxilary buttons easy enough to use with both my left thumb and ring finger after a little practice. It's also very comfortable in my left hand, despite the shaping being symmetrical rather than fitted lefty like most righty mice are. I don't experience any awkward hand positions with it.
As some here have mentioned, the top is a little bit slippery, although the main buttons are large enough where this isn't too big of a hassle.
Sensitivity isn't fantastic (I actually still prefer an old logitech MouseMan II with the heavy ball in it for precision graphics work), but for general pointing & clicking it's good. I also often get the 'signal is low' message even though the mouse is no further than 15 inches from the receiver at any given time. I do use it on a lower keyboard platform, so the desk may be masking it a bit.
All in all, I'd get one again if you're a lefty. For a righty, it'd make a decent everyday mouse. For a graphics or other precision user, not so much.
out of 24 user reviews
Works great for gaming and internet.
Pros: Very smooth sliding on desk.- Smooth scrolling, no clicks.- Tilt wheel. - Much faster reponse than my old optical. - 4 page view by clicking center wheel can be very handy.
Cons: Extra side buttons are hard to use, but I did not intend to use to them anyway.
out of 24 user reviews
fine for web browsing, but that's about it
Pros: wireless mousing
Cons: everything else
for starters the "ergonomic" design of this mouse leaves much to be desired if your hands are smaller than the incredible hulk's®. after a few days of dedicated use i became accustomed to the bulky body's odd shape, but it was still uncomfortable, and after a few hours of dedicated use would result in hand pain. receiver reception is extremely poor, mousing is limited to somewhere between 3 and 5 feet. useless if you intend to use this mouse with a living room media center pc setup. unless you enjoy sitting only 5 feet away from a 50+ inch screen.
extended performance: after two months the mouse wheel no longer worked with any accuracy. scrolling up and down web pages became an exercise in frustration as a quick scroll would yield zero page movement or multiple page scrolling depending on my luck. this made switching weapons and performing other tasks in games equally un-enjoyable.
quite possibly the worst mouse upgrade available. bottom line? if you desperately need a mouse featuring wireless technology pick this one up. otherwise i'd recommend just about any other product available.
out of 24 user reviews
Worst mouse ever
Pros: Shape for lefty is outstanding
Cons: Pointer is jumpy making for a horrible user experience.
Even the first incarnations of the mouse didn't work as poorly as this piece of junk. Scrolling a slider bar makes it jump an inch off center and pointer randomly points within a 3/4" circle of where it should point.
Applying updates have done nothing to help with its problem. It seems to use batteries more frequently than older versions.
I'm going back to the old wire version.
out of 24 user reviews
Laser 6000 much better
Pros: Responsive and customizable
Cons: Uncomfortable and button poorly placed
There are 5 buttons to click that make entries into your computer. There are the standard left and right mouse buttons, the scroll wheel also has a button that you customize, and it has 2 side buttons, one on each side. The default selection for the right side button is a magnifier that can be very helpful with small print, but I found that my right ring finger continually activated the magnifier. It is most annoying. I deactivated that button because my right ring finger would activate that button no matter what I used it for. In addition, the "ergonomic" design is anything but. Sure it can be used for lefties as well as righties, but so can the $5.00 mouse that came with the computer. Because of the shape of the this mouse, my right ring finger (again) is in an unnatural position, and I have to let go of the mouse frequently due to the discomfort it causes.
I would stick to the dedicated right handed mouse, laser 6000, if I could exchange it (but I can't). It has the same features with 5 buttons, but it is much more comfortable to manipulate and doesn't have the "auxiliary" buttons where they can be accidentally engaged easily.
out of 24 user reviews
great mouse for a great price
Pros: smooth fast responce, affordable, comfortable
Cons: would be nice if it had mediaplay buttons
out of 24 user reviews
Optical Mouse 5000 much better, plus cheaper
Pros: non-magnify buttons work fine
Cons: magnify button does not work consistently
out of 24 user reviews
Great mouse with great features and Great feel
Pros: Wireless, Great feel in hand, Magnify feature
Cons: Magnify button on right side is hard to use
Other than that, this is a great mouse with lots of controls. Both hardware controls on the mouse and software controls suing the Intellipoint software.
out of 24 user reviews
Something overlooked by the reviews?
Pros: I enjoy the wireless feature for the freedom of movement it affords.
Cons: My screensaver no longer functions while using this mouse.
With the help of Microsoft Support, I found my loss of screen saver. It was due to conflict with another software program. I removed Power DVD from my startup and regained use of the saver. So far, no more problems.
out of 24 user reviews
Excellent for a lefty!
Pros: Very compfortable for a lefty to use
Cons: Side button placement is a little off
The WLM5000 is quite comfortable for me to use, and very precise and responsive. Excellent to use with Photoshop. Love the scroll wheel, and programable buttons for getting around the internet. I highly recommend this unit, but would buy a left handed MX1000 in a heartbeat.
out of 24 user reviews
Lathargic response, MMB doesn't work consistently
Pros: Good ergonomics
Cons: Almost useless for working with graphic applications
out of 24 user reviews
not worth the money
Pros: comfortable design good battery life
Cons: low range small side buttons
