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Anyone who's spent time on Street Tech has seen us test a whole menagerie of pointing devices. We don't know about you, but like a lot of tireless pixel pushers, we're struggling with aching hands, wrists, and forearms (a.k.a. Repetitive Stress Injury). Because of this nagging problem, we feel compelled to hunt down and try out all of the new pointing gizmos that seem to be proliferating these days. The latest device to get the business here at the Labs is the MicroPoint. When I first eyeballed it on the Altra website, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how the damn thing worked. It's unlike any other such device I've seen. It has an 4 3/8" x 4 1/2" base and in the center is a 1 1/4" x 1 1/2" "micropad" that looks like it might be a touchpad. Attached to this pad by a short plastic shaft is the three-button mouse-like pointer. When you move the pointer around, it slides the micropad along with it. The three buttons can be assigned with a host of functions (click, double-click, cut, paste, open/print/save/quit, and custom macros).
The box for this unique-looking device claims that the MicroPoint is "comfortable like a mouse, stationary like a trackball, accurate like a tablet, and intuitive like a touchpad." Let's unpack these one at a time: Uncomfortable like a mouse I read a number of reviews of the MicroPoint and testimonials from users on the Altra site and they all mention how comfortable the device is. Ergonomic. Easy on wrists and arms. It does have some great things going for it. The micropointer slides around with almost no friction; it's much easier to move around than a mouse. The biggest problem with the MicroPoint though is the dinky size of the pointing device. It measures only 2 1/4" from front to back. To click on the buttons you have to scrunch up your pointer finger. As I've noted in previous pointing device reviews, I have arthritis and a mild case of RSI, so I may be an overly-sensitive judge, but I found that the finger motions required cause pain in my wrist that I don't get with a conventional mouse. The MicroPoint moves so easily that you don't have to use your wrist or arm at all. If the pointer unit was lower (it rises above the desk higher than my current mouse) and the top 3-button surface was longer, you could move it more easily and comfortably while keeping your hand relatively flat. Not quite stationary like a trackball One of the selling features of the MicroPoint is that it doesn't take up as much space as a mouse, making it great for notebook use in tight spaces. This may be true, but it's not quite accurate to say that it's stationary. The pointer needs to move a fair amount around the micropad, and if you're gripping the pointer unit the way it was designed to be gripped, your hand is moving around much more than with a trackball. And while it may be true that the MicroPoint is much smaller than a mousepad, its 4 3/8" x 4 1/2" dimensions would provide enough room to work a mouse (using the lift and roll method of mouse operation). Accurate like a tablet? The MicroPoint is supposed to have a precision feature that opens a floating one-to-four inch zoom-in square window for pixel-by-pixel editing of graphics. I couldn't, for the life of me, get this feature to work, so I can't tell you anything about it. Need something to liken it to a touchpad Frankly, I have no idea what the claim "intuitive like a touchpad" could mean here. The pad part of the MicroPoint does look like a touchpad, but the pointer unit on top of it acts more like a mouse and I don't find anything intuitive about it. The MicroPoint software does allow you to program shortcuts and macros in a fashion similar to a touchpad, but it's not as good as Kensington's MouseWorks software. The idea of creating a new type of pointing device that combines the best of a mouse, tablet, trackball, and touchpad might be a noble endeavour, but perhaps too much effort went into trying to make the MicroPoint be all things to all people. Most people's needs are simple: a pointing device that does its job (ya know...pointing), allows for customization of buttons, and most importantly, is easy on the hand, wrist, and arm. So far, everything we've looked at might do one or two things right, but at the expense of the others. As we try out all these different devices, we gain a greater appreciation for the good ol' mouse. Maybe we'll find the holy grail of pointers one day, but in the meantime, the lowly rodent on a rope will have to do. Other pointing devices we've reviewed (listed from favorite to least favorite):
- Gareth Branwyn [4/6/98]
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