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YOU'VE HEARD the hype. (If you haven't, see pages 12-13 for some hype!) The real deal on Apple's multi-button Mighty Mouse is that it's innovative, cleverly designed, programmable, a pleasure to use and it's named after one of the top five cartoon mice. But it's still just a mouse.
That said, if you use Tiger and want a new mouse, you couldn't do much better than this. Its Scroll Ball and pressure-sensitive side buttons can be programmed to launch Tiger functions such as Dashboard, Spotlight and Expose or any other application or file. (Programming requires OS 10.4.2 and an included software utility, but Mighty Mouse works on any OS X system, as well as Windows PCs.) These shortcuts are great time savers, and we now use Expose's convenient window revealing more than we did before. On the flip side, we think the side buttons require a bit more force to press than they should.
Garnering the most oohs and aahs is the Mighty Mouse's neat-o touch sensitivity. It doesn't actually have left, right and Scroll Ball buttons. It's made in the same single-button style as Apple's recent mice, but it senses whether you're clicking on the left side, right side or on the Scroll Ball and acts according to your preferences for each. The touch sensitivity always worked accurately for us. However, if both of your fingers are resting on the Mighty Mouse when you press on the right side for the secondary button, it will perform the left-side task.
The Scroll Ball, with 360-degree scrolling, is another pretty big deal. You can scroll within any app in any direction: vertically, horizontally and even diagonally or in a circular motion, which is most useful when viewing images. We found the scrolling to be comfortable and convenient. The one idiosyncrasy was that the horizontal scrolling sensitivity varied; it was slow in Safari, fast in Adobe Photoshop and an average speed in iMovie and GarageBand.
-MARKKUS ROVITO
Mighty Mouse: 
Apple | www.apple.com/mightymouse | 800-692-7753 | $49
Pros: Four programmable buttons, comfortable and effective 360- degree scrolling, launching apps or Tiger functions with it saves time.
Cons: Side buttons not quite sensitive enough, horizontal scrolling sensitivity changes among applications.
Requires: OS X
macHOME recommends: OS 10.4.2 to program buttons
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