Belkin Aerocruiser Mouse
Pretty fancy looking little guy isn't it. The newest rat on the block comes to us from the cool people at Belkin. The Aerocruiser is a USB/PS2 compatible two button with scroll wheel, but that's not all. As you can see from the spotlight pic above, they went out on an aesthetic design limb and gave us a new shape and style for our hands. That little colored "wing" threw me off at first, with thoughts like "Will it break? Is it going to feel funny? Can I break it?"
Okay, so breaking things is all fun and then some, the wing is very sturdy stuff for sure. Granted I could have placed the little guy on the floor and checked out how it acted as a gas pedal, under such pressure I am sure it would have cracked. For use as a mouse, it was tough under the pressure of my hand and held up quite nicely. So what's up with the wing, right? It's all about color and style these days. Those damned Imac's started the whole trend of translucent eye catching brightness into what for years has been a beige dulldrum. Colored PC's, printers, monitors, yada yada are all the rage now. I think the mice were feeling a bit left out, so it's a good thing Belkin helped them out.
The interchangeable wings, at a cool $6.95 a piece, come in 5 colors. The two you get when you purchase the mouse are purple and graphite. There are 3 others you can purchase right from their online shop and sport strawberry, blueberry, and orange flavors. Should be enough color there to coordinate with any outfit, he he.
Not all of us are color freaks, so let's take a look at how this mouse is at being just that, a mouse.
Being a USB mouse is a good thing, in that there is a heightened sensitivity and accuracy to it's movement, and Belkin held up to the standard on that one. While it is no Razor Boomslang 2000 when it comes to movement, it is by no means a slacker. Then again, the Aerocruiser is not marketed as an all out gaming piece, and shouldn't be placed in the same barrel. Either on the USB or PS2 port, it tracked well, and far better than those $10 specials, or the ever popular "cuz I broke my old one and needed one fast" Radio Shack clunker.
Belkin's software drivers and app gives you speed settings to play with, and 8 way scrolling. Now that was interesting, it allowed me to scroll through all those nudie pic's like nobodies business! The general feel of the mouse is comfortable enough as well, shaped to keep both the lefties and the righties mousing with ease.
The buttons are large enough and very tactile to make clicking about a pleasure.
The weight of this thing is very light. By chopping that curve under the colored wing, most of it's bulk is gone, making it very easy to glide along the desktop or your browser. It felt right at home on my Ratpadz mousing surface (shameless plug). One thing I liked is that when attached to my OmniCube 4 Port KVM via the PS2 adapter, I had no issues or flakiness. That is a plus, and would have royally sucked had it not performed as well as it did hooked up to another Belkin product (yes we do have a lot of their stuff!)