Of Mice And Men

A minor disaster has befallen me. My Razer Krait, my long-standing ultra-minimal mouse, has developed a slight left-click fault. It only works about 50% of the time which, as you all know, is no good for gaming. I need 100%. After years of service this mouse will have to be put down, buried in a shoe box in the garden, while I fire three shots into the air with a home-made water pistol. This also means that it's time for a new mouse. But what do I get as a replacement?

The kneejerk reaction is to go for the something obvious, like the Logitech G5. It looks a bit like a magic slug, but I've always done well with Logitech in the past (my Quake III days were powered by an old Logitech optical) and I've heard lots of people say the G5 is a good deal. The customisable G9 just looks a bit silly for my tastes.

Of course I could stick with my previous brand, and go for the Razer Lachesis, which specs up as about the most hi-tech beast on the market. It's a little expensive, but perhaps the quality is worth it. And just look at it. You could kill a man with those lines.

But then there's also the impulse to get something outlandish, like a mouse made of wood, or something custom-built from stainless steel. Browsing around for such outlandishness, I ended up finding this monstrosity:

Could I go for it, and live the nightmare steampunk dream? Maybe not, and besides I'd have to get someone to hand-craft the bugger for me. But that's not to say there isn't some outlandish nonsense in the mainstream mouse market. I mean look at this crazy-machine, the Evoluent Verticalmouse 3, designed to combat RSI:

Would you really be able to sit at a desk with your arm stretched out onto this thing, like you were flying a spaceship from the 1970s? Seriously?

Anyway, I really can't decide on the perfect mouse, and I need some kind of community lowdown on mouse excellence. So I throw the flaw open to the mob. Denizens of RPS, speak your ergonomics!