Mods & Performance

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The Logisys fan mouse has a blue LED to enhance its overall modern design.  However, I found that the blue LED is a bit too close to the red LED used for optics.  This sort of gives a somewhat purple glow effect.  With that said, this is an excellent candidate for a nice mod, considering it is fairly inexpensive.  For this review, I'll go ahead and install a blue LED for optics to keep its cool blue glow intact.

Now, I'm actually glad I decided to take it apart and perform this mod, as it revealed some quality control issues worth noting.  For one, the fan is held with only two screws and missing two on one side for a more secure fit.  Also, when taking the circuit board off, we see a rather sloppy soldering job in general.  While the mouse still performed flawlessly, this was just a bit bothersome as it is quite possibly the worst I've seen on a product.  It basically looks as if it were done by hand rather than precision machines.

Ahh, now that looks great doesn't it?  This time around, I used a higher intensity 4600MCD blue LED with a wide viewing angle for maximum performance.  While I don't recommend this mod to a majority, I can say that with the proper LED installed, performance can be identical to a mouse with a red LED for optics.  However, keep in mind that all optical mice use red LEDs because the red light increases the contrast of the surface it is lighting up. The tiny camera used to take pictures in the mouse is able to see changes in the surface better, offering excellent responsiveness.  In fact, the only mouse on the market that is "rumored" to have a blue optical LED is the Logitech MX510.  However, I highly doubt this, considering the response from Logitech in an interview article with ExtremeMHz that was featured in CPU Magazine.  This was just one of the few articles that featured our modded Logitech dual optical mouse.  This was the mouse that started the craze, "red is dead", and has been highly publicized ever since.  In fact, this is still my primary mouse and I simply cannot part with it.  In my opinion, it is considered one of the best optical mice ever released and I'm quite surprised no other mice featuring dual optics has been introduced.

Performance testing was obviously done with the red LED still intact.  However, I did test the mouse on different quality mouse pads with both the red and blue LED for those who would like to mod this mouse as well.  Let's first take a quick look at the test pads...

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A Steelpad 4S, Steelpad 4D, Aeropad, original Ratzpad and standard black cloth pad were used for testing.

The results were quite surprising.  With the red LED, I found I had to adjust the cursor speed a bit to my liking, as I'm quite used to fast tracking.  However, considering its rated 800dpi optical sensor, the mouse was very precise and certainly suitable for even some demanding Photoshop image editing work.  It performed best with the Steelpad 4D, followed by the Aeropad. 

Now, with the blue LED installed, things were quite different and unexpected.  Performance was best with the original Ratzpad, followed the the Aeropad.  In fact, the cursor speed had to be brought down a bit.  Tracking was really poor with both of the Steelpad models though.  Perhaps it was this new higher MCD blue LED I got that played a role in such great performance.  However, the best performance overall was with the Aeropad.  This is truly a great pad, although its play area is quite small.

Quite possibly, the most impressive feature, is the scroll wheel on this mouse.  Its extra large size feels quite nice and is practically silent compared to all mice I've used.  Scrolling was very smooth and accurate.  If only some high-end mice would have a scroll wheel like this, they would have quite a product on their hands!

Next: Conclusions