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ACTON
MICMOUSE
Introduction
Acton is a newcomer in the world of input devices.
We examined another one of their input devices, the
Mini Optical Mouse. It received a 96% verdict!
Check it out on the menu to the left...
MicMouse
In this
article, we shall examine the Acton MicMouse.
As you can see, it is professionally packaged in a
clamshell with hangtab for easy retail placement.
The MicMouse is housed
in a plastic shell, most ABS. It feels very
solid, and comfortable to hold. It has two
buttons, and a wheel in the middle which has its own
button when depressed. The scroll wheel glows
red by the way. However, the key feature of
this mouse is its microphone which, as you can see,
is located below the scroll wheel.
The MicMouse includes a set of earbuds, and the
mouse cable splits off into the USB connector and a
microphone jack.
We used the MicMouse for several weeks as a standard
mouse and as a microphone on a few occasions.
As a mouse, it performed well, and did seem to live
up to its claimed 800DPI rating at the front of the
packaging. Scrolling and clicking were easy
and predictable. Now as a microphone, we
tested it using Skype, along with the supplied
earbuds. The earbuds sounded like your generic
earbuds, with a fairly mid-range-only response.
It is not suited for music. As for the mic,
well, it did its job. It is an omnidirectional
mic, but in an office or PC environment, a highly
directional one would be preferred. Lastly,
one just cannot use the mouse and speak into the mic
at the same time. The listener on the other
end just hears too much mousing and clicking sounds,
not your voice.
The verdict is that the MicMouse also gets a 86%
verdict, just like the Mini Optical Mouse. It
is innovative in some ways, but also limiting in
that innovation. Acton should just build a
mouse with a mic/earphone jacks on it, have the
cables split off at the end like this mouse, and
include a mic/earphone headset with it. That
way, if you don't need the head set, you don't need
to plug it in. And, when you do use it, the
person you are talking to would actually understand
you.
Overall...96%
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