Rating: 
Summary: A mouse thats worth the extra money
Review: This is a great mouse and is worth the extra money. Yes, you can probably find a similar mouse with the optical eye and wheel but I found the extra buttons helpful in games. 4 out of the 5 buttons are in comfortable places that are easy to resch and are easily programmed in the settings menu. The only drawback is the smaller button on the side. If your playing an action game like Half-Life it is useless. It is hard to get to quickly and place your thumb back into its regular position. Other then that it is a great mouse and I love the intellieye feature. It can be used anywhere and is perfect for people who travel with laptops who hate the touch pad (Like myself) and don't want to have to carry a mouse pad with them all the time. I would recommend this mouse to anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: intellimouse optical
Review: i installed this mouse not once but three times trying to get the buttons to work. all i could get was the right click(default), left click(default) and center scroll(default). i could not get the internet buttons (side Buttons) to work at all. i also could not get anything but default on the other buttons. i went to the microsoft site and after 1 1/2 hours i finally could get support for a small fee of $35.00. this is all and well except the mouse wa 6 hours old. i am bouycotting microsoft products as they could care less about the little people( who by the way make all the money for Microsoft). i bought a logitech optical wheel mousefor 29,99 and it works fine. the only thing is it doesn't have the internet buttons.
Rating:
Summary: Smooth mouse; Smooth service
Review: I bought this mouse in June of 2000. I had purchased the Optical the month before and returned it because it froze almost continuously. During the year I've used the Explorer [on an HP Pavilion], it, too, froze a few times when on line but it gave me such freedom for detailed line drawings that I could forgive it's occasional lapses. It operates soooo smoothly - what a treat!And yes, it's big but my hands are large. The extra buttons and wheel are very very handy. During it's lifetime, the mouse was plugged into the mouse port. Last month, the freezing became continuous online and it bacame sporadic in actually working at all - and, reading one of these reviews (so very helpful!) - I thought it might be a short. However, I used the trouble shooting instructions - plugging it into the USB port and changing the modem. Alas - too late. The pretty red light came on but as soon as I moved it - it died. So, I called Microsoft 13 months and 10 days after I registered it, explaining the problem and my attempts at solving it. The rep said it sounded like a short in the connection and "we will send you a new one at no cost". Because of his quick response and the length of time I have used it, I wonder if this is an ongoing problem with this mouse? Despite the problems, I 'd give it four stars, but add the fifth because of the response from Microsoft. The rep said that they will soon be marketing a cordless Explorer. Aha!
Rating:
Summary: Extra buttons a plus
Review: The only negative I can say about this mouse, is that I have a different one at work and it is easy to get used to more features rather than less. REPLACEMENT TO A PREVIOUS MICROSOFT MOUSE It was not a real stretch for me to switch to this mouse as I previously owned the Microsoft Intellimouse. However, this mouse is bigger with two extra buttons. I was hesistant to change, but the old mouse's roller had gotten real difficult to roll (Cleaning and disassembly could not fix) and once you get used to that roller in between the left and right mouse button you are hooked. The intellimouse is also a clearly right handed mouse, so a similar design attracted me to this mouse. Also to be honest the solid microsoft name behind it helped too. EXTRA BUTTONS A REAL PLUS The two extra buttons on the left of the mouse, handy to your thumb are initially programmed as the forward and back selections on a browser. If you do much surfing and find you use these buttons alot, you can get used to this quick. I never realized how much I missed these buttons until I found myself searching for them at work. You can program these buttons to do different things if you want to, but the default was fine with me. In fact that is true with all the buttons. SIZE IS BIGGER THAN OTHER MICE This is the biggest mouse I've ever owned. You might want to try it out before you buy. It was not a detractor for me because I have fairly large hands. For that reason I may notice it more, as rarely does a mouse take the total length of my hand from the heel of my palm to my finger tip. Ironically, what I read in other reviews is that smaller handed people had no problems, but larger handed people really noticed but did not mind it. Maybe they trully found a one size fits all. SOFTWARE INSTALLS NICELY Not surprisingly the software installed smoothly. Ironically, I accidentally deleted it in a restore to my machine that I had to do for other software and the mouse works fine without it too. I suspect all the software adds is the customizability functions. GOING TO OPTICAL NOT A BIG CHANGE As my previous mouse was not having ball problems, I didn't really notice a big switch when I went to optical. I had always been pretty clean about the mouse, cleaning it every so often and keeping up to date with good mousepads. However, if you had used older optical mice prior to this generation, I need to warn you. These mice work seemlessly without the errors and fussyness of older optical mice. All I did was literally unplug my old mouse, and pop in this one, keeping my nice mouse pad with the gel wrist rest. It works the same. I used the PS2 outlet and not the USB Port as mine are all full with printers, camera connections and CD burners. LIGHT ON BASE OF MOUSE NOT BLINDING If you are a gamer and like to be in a darkened room this optical mouse will not blind you. It has a light on its base that is always on, but since it is red (like the old darkroom lights used to be) it will not detract from your vision if you play in a dark room. It is easy to ignore. However, it does make the mouse easy to find. All in all a decent mouse. Only time will tell how durable this will be relative to the old style ones.
Rating: 
Summary: A really great mouse!!!
Review: I have had this mouse for over a year and it really has made everything better. For one reason it is optical, you don't need from a mousepad and second the design is really cool, specially the red light coming from beneath the mouse. Due to it's size it is not for people who have small hands. Technically it's very accurate for applications and most of all for games. I am a hardcore gamer and it works perfectly. It has 4 buttons which are programmable with many tasks like closing, starting, searching, etc. I recommend this mouse to all those gamers out there. If you like accuracy, do not want to be cleaning the ball all the time, don't want a mousepad, then this is your mouse. I would have given it 5 stars, but due that it is not cordless (which really is annoying for me moving the mouse and needing for more cable or trying to put all of it back to it's position....etc) I only give it 4. If your looking for a cordless and optical mouse then look for the Logitech Cordless MouseMan Optical, but I recommend you to read the reviews first. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm looking forward in buying it soon and testing it.
Rating: 
Summary: A bad piece of machinery!!
Review: First of all I would strongly encourage looking at a different mouse this this shameful piece of plastic. I paid near [price] for this mouse when it first came out expecting dazzling results. I got nothing--it stopped working after about 2 months of normal use. I couldn't believe it!! There was no way I, myself could fix it--there's no lint jamming it, and there is no ball to check and see if it's secure. The layout of the mouse was OK-I liked the additional buttons. It is specifically designed for a right handed user as you can see. I thought I needed a new mousepad. And I got one. It continued to be jumpy just before it died. I was cleaning out my desk and just through the sorry thing into the garbage. I returned to my normal ball mouse and am skeptical of ever buying an optical again-And if I do it won't be a Microsoft!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Functional Buttons Yet Awkward Design
Review: The Intellimouse Explorer is an iffy area with me. I purchased it thinking it would be a simple but effective addition to my computer since I have a cable modem. This was a good choice since the back and forward buttons and the wheel are great for working with Internet Explorer. However, the size of the mouse is awkward and I am not sure how to hold it properly still. I also found that the cursor jumps around because of that optical mouse feature. I think it may be that I need a new mousepad but it is an annoyance. A major complaint is that I purchased the mouse because of how it looks and the paint on it is wearing off from a shiny silver to a dull gray. The Microsoft words are gone and almost everyone in the family uses the computer it is on. I would recommend you a Logitech one for shape and a good optical mouse compatible mousepad. I am barely satisfied with this mouse and for the price, I would get the Logitech one (looks really cool) if I could change it.
Rating:
Summary: What a tragic
Review: I must admit, I loved this mouse. Until it started to go erratic on me. I have had this mouse for only about a year, and I am very easy on electronics. Sometimes, it just doesnt work at all, or it would freeze for a second or two and start working again every few minutes. I expected more as far as quality goes considering the price of the unit. I am converting to Logitech.
Rating:
Summary: The Pros and Cons of Intellimouse Explorer
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this mouse so I have it a 4. I compute 8-12 hours on 5 days per week, so it had much use. Mine died, leaving me to believe that this mouse has an expected life of 1.5-2 years (I received mine as a gift on Christmas '99). Pros: -Is very ergonomic for right-handers. Many say it is large (which it seemed at first) but it is more comfortable for my smaller hands... oddly enough. I don't have to keep other parts of my hand crunched up and can just lay my hand down. -Fast, easy, programmable buttons. -Looks very sexy for a mouse. -Like I said, I use my mouse a lot so beige ones tend to get crud build up on top of them. The silver-colored *plastic* shell hides dirt better. -You don't have to clean crud from the innards of the device since you have no ball. -The auto-scroll function is great. Cons: -it can be large for wrist-rest mousepads sometimes (which I need to keep my wrist from hurting). -the buttons felt a little flimsy/thin at first. I got use to this in a day and forgot about it fast. -there are not enough buttons! Forget about it "being too complicated", you soon wish your mouse could do more. Once you use this mouse you wish you could have two more buttons on it for copying to clipboard, pasting to documents, closing windows, etc. -<b>IMPORTANT!!! Many other mouses have a stronger connection "enforcement" of plastic where the cord meets the mouse. Near the end, my mouse cord didn't give enough leeway so I lightly pulled for some more cord. *BLINK* The cord came out of my mouse about 1 or 2 millimeters and only works when I hold the cord to the mouse firmly. The cord did NOT disconnect, it just loosened from its connection and killed my mouse and made me reboot countless times with it. If you get this mouse get a USB cord extender to avoid this from happening.</b>.....
Rating:
Summary: almost perfect
Review: I love this mouse. It works great. It Has five buttons( for whatever reason you might use them for. the only probvlem is its huge.
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