Microsoft Touch Mouse

We've seen mouse manufacturers try to cram so many buttons on their products that it was hard to know where to hold them.

Now the trend has gone the other way with mice on which all the buttons are replaced by a touch-sensitive pad. The Touch Mouse is Microsoft's offering, an alternative to Apple's Magic Mouse and competitors. It's exclusive to Windows 7 – it will still work in other Windows versions but users won't get the multi-touch functions.

The Touch is well made and sat comfortably in the hand, though it's not ergonomically shaped so it's equally comfortable for right- and left-handers. It connects wirelessly to a USB receiver, which plugs into a spare USB socket on the PC. It's small, protruding barely 5mm from the USB socket. When not in use it slots into a hole beneath the mouse. The mouse's underside also has a switch to turning it off to save power when it's not in use.

Finally there is a panel for the two AA batteries. Normally these would make a mouse too heavy for comfort but in this case they help to stop the Touch – which is on the light side – from flying around too far.

There are no buttons on the top of the mouse – instead the user presses down on the top-left area for a left-click, or the top-right for a right-click.

We were prompted to install Microsoft's Intellipoint software on plugging the Touch in but if you're not it's a quick download from the website. This software adds new options to the Mouse control panel in Windows and includes a video showing the five available gestures.

The gestures are the point of the Touch Mouse. They allow the user to perform complex actions by moving fingers on the touch-sensitive surface of the mouse. They are made using one, two or even three fingers and by using the thumb on one side of the mouse. Gestures cover scrolling through a window in all four directions, arranging windows on the desktop and ‘snapping' windows so they appear alongside one another.

To help identify the gesture the user is making, small blue circles appear on-screen just above the mouse pointer showing how many figures the mouse has detected moving and in which direction they are moving. These ‘touch trails' can be disabled but we found them useful to keep, especially when we were learning to use the mouse.

Having just five gestures sounds limiting but it does mean users have a good chance of remembering them.

The gestures, and the Touch Mouse in general worked well, though it's really only worthwhile for Windows 7 users.

It's relatively expensive but it's a well-made mouse and the gestures really do add value.