Home > Consumer Reviews > Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer

I spent alot of time looking for a good optical mouse. I looked at prices, features, number of buttons, etc. I decided to go for the Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer based on the location of the extra buttons. At first it felt kind of light in my hand and it took a little bit of time getting used to the extra buttons. But now that I have used it for a while I love it! The extra buttons are programable and are placed in the perfect spots. I use one to copy and the other one to paste. The optical eye never misses a beat, you get precise pointing everytime. The only thing I wish is that they would of made it a little heavier, the plastic is pretty light and the texture could also have more grip. Other than that it is an excellent product.

I bought my corded Intellimouse Explorer 3.0 for use on a PC with Windows ME. For the first 18 months it worked great then all of a sudden began having multiple problems.

PROS:
1) Excellent tracking resolution, never lets the cursor skip or jump. Can make tiny moves smoothly. The bottom of the mouse moves smoothly and I've never had to clean the surface contacts.
2) Comfortable ergonomic shape. My hand doesn't get tired after a day of mousing.
3) The extra buttons are well placed and easy to program to do whatever I need them to do (wish there were even more buttons!).

CONS:
1) The scroll wheel was never easy to roll, but after about a year it became nearly impossible to use. Hard to roll, as if it was stuck or dirty. It wasn't dirty on the outside, but I couldn't open the mouse to see if it needed cleaning on the inside. I have to press down so hard to get the wheel to turn now that the wheel button engages instead. The scroll wheel is supposed to move freely with little resistance, instead now its almost useless.
2) Recently the left-click button started registering a double-click every other time I single-click. This is some sort of mechanical problem, since it happens no matter what I set the sensitivity to, and at any rate I'm not clicking any differently than I ever have. This is a major annoyance and renders the mouse basically useless.
3) A $50 dollar mouse (at the time of purchase) should last longer than 18 months. I use it mostly for typical office work. Although I do gaming with it as well, I do not consciously abuse my equipment. Perhaps the gaming causes extra stress on a mouse, but I've never had cheap $20 mice go kaput with the same kind of use.

All in all, though this mouse has nice features, I couldn't recommend this model, although more recent versions may have been improved. I have to replace this one now, and although I have nothing against Microsoft in general and usually look at Microsoft products first, I will be trying a Logitech mouse next (for the first time).

After researching and reading all about mice in general, I decided I wanted an optical mouse and this one came out on top of the reviews regularly. I never had anything beside the standard 2 or 3 button mouse prior to this purchase. I love this mouse and will never go back to a mouse with a ball again! Its precision amazes me - as a hardcore pc gamer I can now do completely accurate distance targeting and have much smoother overall precision of movement when moving around in games. I gave it a "draw a smiley face in Photoshop" test. First I drew the smiley with the old ball mouse = ack, it looked like a 2 year old's drawing! Then I drew a smiley after I hooked up my new Intellimouse and WOW, what a difference, now the circle was smooth instead of jerky and I could make little dot eyes instead of square eyes that the ball mouse made. It was the funniest thing I just sat there and kept looking at the 2 pics side by side = there is a huge difference! Ok, enough ranting on how precise it is... I also appreciate the additional 2 side buttons, one is for "page back" in your internet browser and the other for "page forward" - they are both located conveniently near the thumb but not in the way of normal mouse movement. Also this is a three button mouse, the scrolling wheel serves as a button too. So, 5 buttons and keen precision and no jerky stuck on the edge of the mousepad! Oh, did I mention, unless you have a glasstop desk or a mirror top one, you DO NOT NEED a mousepad. Nope! Even your jeans work...this mouse is slick! No need to pull and drag to make that ball work anymore! Lose the ball and get one of these optical mice and you will never look back again!

Pros = smooth, accurate movement, total precision for gaming

Cons = why a red light? why not blue? (lol, just kidding)

Overall = I will not surrender this mouse, its mine, get away, go get your own! (ie, I would buy it again and will not go back to ball cleaning)

Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer 3.0 was introduced to me by tech columnist in metro-area paper as being the highest item on a must-have list of add-ons, peripherals, etc.
I curiously purchased one with some reservations because it favors a right-handed person. Because of its versatility this is not a factor. [I disarmed two of its buttons, rendering it highly useable for a south-paw.]
I am particularly attracted to its automatic and variable-speed scrolling feature on its wheel, the no-need feature re a pad, and its overall performance and comfortability, and its maintenance-free feature because it doesn't depend upon a ball.
I just bought a second one for my son as a present.

It worked really well and I was totally satisfied with this mouse until several months ago. (which means, after two years of usage)
The problem slowly came up to the surface.
Single click was started to be recognized as a double click.
I'm kind of getting sense on how much pressure on the left mouse button determines single click or double click.
If I press the button very lightly, it register as single click.
If I press little bit harder, it takes it as double click.
In scroll button case, they are reverted.
Press scroll button hard makes single click and lighter makes double click.
Now, I'm sick of it (since numerous times a day, I launch wrong application because of that double click problem), and considering buying logitech MX300