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Microsoft Laser Mouse 6000 Review - Hardware

Microsoft is starting to move back into the gaming peripherals market after an absence of a couple of years. Once again they are hoping to capitalise on the strong demand for high quality gaming products. The Laser Mouse 6000 is one of their first new forays, and co-incides with a wide range of new keyboard and new mouse products, many with specific gaming features in mind. Also of note is that the standard Xbox360 controllers (when released) will function with your standard PC.

We reviewed the brand new Laser Mouse 6000 – with 2000dpi laser tracking (a standard optical mouse is around 800dpi), and a fairly sleek case. Also now available is the Wireless Laser Mouse 6000, the wireless edition of this mouse, offering a promised 6 months of battery life from one AA battery.

Hardware

As the Micosoft Laser Mouse 6000 is not suprisingly, a laser mouse – it uses a built in laser sensor to track movement, rather than the older style LED optical sensor. This means that on the desk the mouse lacks the trademark red glow seen in most current mice, and simply offers invisible and fast tracking through a laser beam. For some they might miss this, but as the LM6000 is a Microsoft product and appears to bridge business use, as well as just game use, not an important loss in say the office.

The mouse feels quite light in your hand, very maneuverable, and very very fast to track across the desk with the standard settings. It does take a get a bit of getting used to at first, going from a more traditional optical mouse, and you may find yourself overshooting the mark when clicking on buttons and things for the first little while. When you get used to it, it's gold, flick the mouse only a tiny bit, and the pointer is where you want it. In some ways we even found that with a faster mouse what appeared to be 'smooth' frame rates in your favourite game, weren't actually so smooth with the speed of the mouse movement! The mouse speed can be that noticeable.

Microsoft's Laser Mouse 6000 also implements on the fly sensitivity adjustment. This means that fast movements of the hand will promote rapid movement in a game, whereas for finer work, or perfect sniping it tracks more accurately. We found this worked very well, and allowed some very fine headshots that had us cackling in glee. So for those looking for that gaming edge, the LM6000 definitely offers that much improvement to be noticeable. Does this mean more kills in your favourite FPS? It sure does.

Cable wise, the Laser Mouse 6000 cable is also thinner than most other mice out there, with a diameter of only 2mm at most. This seems to be to allow swifter movement of the mouse body itself across the desk, without being tied down to the weight of ... (continued next page)