Software

Upon placing the CD in the drive, the Setup autostarts. It is the good old kind, nothing new with Windows Installer 3.1 or a newer version of DemoShield. The installer reminds me of the Windows 98 based installations. Another thing to note is the font and lack of languages. The package of the mouse includes an English, French, German and Spanish description, while the installer leaves the user English, Chinese and Japanese. The font used during installation is the traditional one used for Asian environments when a language with these letters needs to be displayed. The next thing to note is the lack of an EULA or End User License Agreement. Some countries require such an EULA by law. The software installed is called "Multi-Direction Mouse 1.3" - not very creative.


The installer finds the standard, German "Program Files" folder. This is not something to take for granted, as many small programs - especially the older kind, force the wrong Program Files folders and thus create a second one. Another interesting note is the small size of the program: 1.7MB. The installation files take up 1.25MB on the CD. These could have fit on a floppy as well, but I-Rocks chose a CD as some no longer use a floppy drive in their computers.


The rest of the installer did not have any notable difference compared to other such procedures. The user is asked to restart their PC at the end of the installer, but I chose not to. Even without a restart, the software worked flawlessly. The entire text during the installation was written in good English without any obvious spelling and grammatical errors.


The application itself is quite small. There are two major settings:

• The function of the Tilt-Wheel button, also known as the middle mouse button. The user can choose what program it opens or function the button has.
• The use of the left and right button of the scroll wheel itself. The default is set at horizontal scrolling, but the user can set it to other functions, like navigation in Internet Explorer.

Performance

Judging the performance of a mouse is base almost purely on subjective opinion. Some gamers like a fast, small and light mouse. Other want to use bigger movements and mice that fill the entire palm, while feeling the weight during movement. The i-rocks Laser Mouse can be operated at 800 or 1600 DPI. Both of these values are by no means the highest offered by a mouse. The Razer DeathAdder has 1800 DPI, you can read our review here.

I fired up my favorite game - Half-Life 2 and played through the first few levels. The game requires relatively fast and accurate movement. It may not be as speedy as Counter-Strike, but faster than games like El Matador, Condemned or Far Cry.

The switch between 800 and 1600 DPI yields a very different feel when playing a first person shooter. The mouse buttons were not as responsive and need a bit more force than the Logitech MX518 or MX Revolution. The dept of the push needed is a bit higher as well. The very light mouse does take some getting used to, as does the wide size. All buttons of the mouse can be reached quite easily and the middle button works good as well. The mouse wheel itself is not very comfortable. Moving it does not give very good feedback, so switching things like weapons is not quite as easy as with other mice.

The i-rocks Laser Mouse works on all surfaces tested: plastic and cloth pads as well as different kind of table surfaces.