got the gyration go mouse

[kensuguro]

For relaxed browsing and mousing, I got myself the gyration airmouse + keyboard combo.. just installed it, and messed with it this evening..

My feelings are very mixed. The keyboard is okay.. passable. I used belkin's "very, very plain keyboard" which was also just.. well, okay. And so for me it wasn't a step up or down. But I can easily say that from a better built keyboard, the build quality is somewhat questionable, although not horrible. What's the best word for this situation.... shall I say, mediocre? The typical membrane keys are somewhat on the clackity noisy side. It also has a the usual "multimedia key" nonesense that I personally never use. Strangely, the driver software only deals with the mouse, and so the multimedia keys are not user customizable. Which completes the damage, and makes the keys totally useless. I would trade up these useless keys for a smaller, more compact keyboard.

Now... the mouse. The meat, the main part. Right out of the box, it didn't work right. Perhaps it was the weak battery, maybe the gyros were adjusting to my cat, I dunno. But the first 30 minutes, the thing was acting all jittery and the mouse kept drifting away. My initial reaction was.. "wow, this thing is sensitive".

I guess I'll give you the bad news first. The thing is a little unpredictable. The main problem is that when the gyro gets un-caliberated, it needs to be put back in its charging cradle for a second or two, and then all is fixed. This does happen sporadically, and unfortunately makes it an unreliable device. This will definitely be a major let down for most people. Who needs an unpredictable mouse?

Also, the left / right mouse buttons on the thing is extremely sensitive. I have no idea why they made it like this. Just the weight of your fingers on the button will trigger it. How dumb is that. And the strangest thing is, their extra function buttons (that you can assign shortcuts to), are normal buttons that don't have the hyper sensitivity problem. The hyper sensitivity is less of an issue when you're using it in air mode. Actually it helps you in air mode since you don't need to press the buttons too much, minimizing mouse shake during clicks.. but with normal desktop use (the thing automatically switches modes), you will most likely be driven insane with the unintentional right mouse clicks.

After a few hours of messing with it though, you do pick up a few tricks that make the thing... actually pretty nice to use. As I was frowning, muttering offensive remarks at the shaking mouse cursor, and generally looking like an idiot, I realized that I don't need to swing around my arm in mid air. Actually, it's more of a flick of the wrist thing, and when my arm is resting on a still surface, such as the arm of the chair, or just dangling from my lap, it stabilizes the mouse to an incredible degree. Actually, the accuracy when used in this way is quite startling. You stop the mouse, and it will completely stop. With very slow movement, I can control the cursor with about 2-3 pixel increments.

The other trick is to use the "trigger" button efficiently. The mouse only does motion sensing when the trigger is pressed. Initially I just kept it pressed the whole time since seeing the mouse move around was cool. But I began to realize that I could use the trigger as sort of "lift the mouse and bring it back over" just like you'd do with a normal mouse. By combining the trigger release with a quick flick of the wrist, one "stroke" would only cover a limited distance, maintaining maximum accuracy, and the wrist can be brought to a new position while the trigger is released, starting the process over again.

And for some strange reason, couple of hours into using the thing, the drifting happens much less. Actually it's pretty much stopped happening. So... I'm not sure what to make of this. If the drifting becomes a chronic issue, this thing is trash. If not... I wouldn't ever use it as a desk top mouse that's for sure. It's red laser (the old laser) optic mouse feature is not bad, but the ergonomics is horrible, not to mention the ultra sensitive buttons. So, my logitec mx laser will do that ankyu very much. But the air feature.. it's growing on me every by the minute. It's definitely new, and it's at a point where it just might work. It's a little frustrating that it didn't pass with flying colors, but at the same time, I'm quite surprised it's works this well.

Verdict: Will not replace a normal desktop mouse. If you need a remote mouse for a media pc, double thumbs up. It's also very good for chilled out web surfing, as you can be in any posture you want. Also for musical purposes, I'm afraid it might not have the required accuracy since the positioning is sort of relative.

[katano]

nice one, thanks ken.

cheers
roman

[ReD_MuZe]

masterpice and has to go on some cnet review or somethin

[BingoTheClowno]

I've used to have one. You have to adjust the setting to your likings. What I found very useful are using gestures as commands.