As promised, here are my thoughts about the Microsoft/Razer Habu mouse, that I have been using for about a month now.
I bought this mouse after my Logitech G5 suddenly died. I had to choose a new mouse (as the shop where I work had no G5 anymore), so i typed in google "mouse with cord and lots of buttons" or sth like this and along with the G5, the Habu was in the first results. As I was in a hurry (try to play CS:S without a mouse !), I just went to the first shop that was selling it and bought it.
The first impression was great. The blue light around the mouse is cool, the driver installation worked greatly. I tried to update the driver after the installation, as there is a link "update" in the driver options, but it links to the razer website and I couldn't find update for the Habu mouse (apparently I already have the latest version of the driver). I think Microsoft should have make a direct link to its website, it would have been easier.
What is really great with this mouse, is that you can preset 5 different settings for it. It's nice as I use different settings when I'm browsing the internet than when I'm playing CS. Now I'm still awaiting for a mouse that could automatically change its presets depending on the software in use. There was a similar option with the Logitech G5 mouse, but those presettings only work with MS Office softwares...
The mouse has a total of 7 buttons. If you forget about the 3 usual ones, it makes 4 more buttons, 2 on the top of the mouse, 2 on the side, that you can set to nearly whatever you want. I have chosen shortcuts to action button (defusing, opening doors...), spray tag, walking and throwing a weapon, which is with my current keyboard layout really fine. I hadn't that much buttons on the G5 and had to set the "horizontal scrolling" buttons to some of these options, which was not nice as I couldn't switch between another settings when I was not playing CS:S.
I won't be talking about the precision of the mouse. Because I'm not a specialist of this, I know some of you have felt the difference when you began to use a laser mouse instead of an optical one (or at least a more precised mouse). To be honest I don't think I have become a better player when I bought my first laser mouse (Logitech MX1000) than I was before. Now it has a max 1600 dpi, I never used more than 400, I can't stand the speed when more than 800 dpi, so I don't see the point. Now it is a precised mouse, and I haven't noticed any reaction differences between Habu and G5.
All the previous text was written about 3 weeks ago. At that time, the mouse was working fine. Now, the story isn't the same anymore :( Since about 2 weeks, the scrolling ingame became imprecised. I use the scroll to change weapons, but when I wanted to use my knife I had a nade in the hand, and when I wanted to fire my weapon I had the knife :o As it was unplayable and that was pissing me off, I decided yesterday to uninstall and resintall the driver and software (unfortunately, there were no updates available on the Razer website). I did, it worked fine yesterday (no more scrolling issue), then today I tried to switch between my presets, and the mouse lights, that should turn off for a few seconds, didn't. So I tested the setting, to see if it has actually applied or not... it hadn't... Ok, I stay calm and choose my CSS setting, clicked on "apply" 10 times at least, then launched the game and played, to finally notice I was unable to use my mouse binds.
So I just tried to uninstall and reinstall it once again (I rebooted the computer after the uninstall and the reinstall), and guess what ?? The settings were still saved, as if I hadn't totally uninstalled it, and it was still not working properly.
As I think this is a software problem, the warranty won't apply, so I guess I will have to buy a new mouse once again (something like my 6th or 7th mouse in 3 years...)
So if you want my advice... don't buy this mouse. I think I'm gonna buy another Logitech, still don't now which one though. I'll let you know in a next blog entry ;-)
