|
Design
The R7-70D is not only one great-looking mouse,
but designed to provide maximum comfort and control. Let's have a
detailed look at this beauty...
|
**click to enlarge** |
**click to enlarge** |
Sporting some sleek curves and grips to ensure
it won't slip from your hands, the mouse is extremely comfortable, as long
as you don't have very large hands. While some pictures I've seen show
an all-black, all-white and carbon model, our sample featured an appealing two-toned silver/black finish.
|
**click to enlarge** |
**click to enlarge** |
On the left side of the mouse you'll find two
side buttons and a rubber-like thumb grip that not only feels nice, but
designed to prevent slipping from sweat during long term use. Although
minor, it was certainly a very nice touch that does add to its overall
comfort. There are no buttons or grips on the right side of the
mouse.
**click to enlarge**
The optical sensor is located on the bottom center and
there is a metallic-orange button that serves as both a connect and
power-off button as explained in the first section of this article.
**click to enlarge**
Last but not least, are the two buttons you'll
find near the scroll wheel of the mouse. These buttons offer some
unique functionality not found in most other mice. When installing their software, the "Office"
button will load a small but practical command menu to take advantage of
some of the features Microsoft Office has to offer. The second button
servers as a double-click button, eliminating the need to click twice on the
standard left mouse button. While this can be practical, it will take
a bit of time to get used to and if you switch mice later on, will take a
while to adapt again to the norm.
Installation & Software
**click to enlarge**
The A4Tech R7-70D comes with a rather small RF
USB receiver that can either be plugged in directly to your computer's USB
port or the included extension/cradle. After extensive testing, I
found that using the extension cable was necessary for best responsiveness.
To make things more interesting, I decided to
install and test the R7-70D on two of my test beds featuring both WinXP and a retail copy of Vista
Ultimate. Considering this product ships with no clear indication that
it does support this new OS, I was very curious to know whether both the
mouse and their software would run flawlessly on this new but troublesome OS.
On both operating systems, the mouse does install flawlessly and properly
listed under the same menu in Device Manager. However,
that's basically where it stops with Vista. While the software does
install properly, it does not function nor does it support the
Office 2007 Suite. Attempting to launch the application manually will
fail and their is no app that loads on startup either. With that said,
the rest of the tests where conducted on a WinXP SP2 test system...
Installing their software will load a small app
on your sys tray that will provide quick access to all supported features.
Let's have a closer look at the software...
|
**click to enlarge** |
**click to enlarge** |
Upon launching the application, you will have
access to a total of seven menus. The first menu will allow you to
configure all buttons, as well as set the double click speed. and use based
on whether you are right or left handed. Unfortunately though, the
R7-70D is designed for ultimate comfort and does not sport a ambidextrous
design. With that said, this is not a mouse for left-handed PC users.
The second tab will basically give you access to the pointer options
available on the operating system.
|
**click to enlarge** |
**click to enlarge** |
The third tab will allow you to modify the
motion settings typically found on just about every mouse. The
fourth tab will allow you to control how you would like the scroll wheel to
function.
|
**click to enlarge** |
**click to enlarge** |
Nothing much to say about the firth tab, as it
only provides basic information on the hardware itself. The most important though is the Settings
menu. From here is where you will be able to configure how the "Net"
or "Luckyjump" options work and assign a button to each based on your needs.
You can fully customize the mouse from this menu and take advantage of many
of its unique features.
**click to enlarge**
The software itself will allow you to configure
how the office button will function and does have plenty of options available.
On a WinXP system, clicking on the Office button
will load a very small command menu that will allow quick access to common
task. This works very well in Windows XP but fails to operate on the
new Windows Vista operating system, as well as with Office 2007. They
only worked flawlessly with Office XP and Office 2003. I personally
love to use the office jump features with Outlook and you can set it to
use this application instead of Word or Excel if you'd like.
Basically, after you have configured the commands to your liking, it will
make use of both side buttons to perform certain common tasks. Once you get
used to it, it is great and a nice quick way to work with Outlook and other
Office applications.
**click to enlarge**
If you're like me, you'll probably already be
used to the side buttons on a mouse for back/forward functions as it is best
for browsing the web. Note though that when taking advantage of
the Office features, it will make use of both of these buttons and in
order to use the side buttons for other purposes, you must disable the
office features on buttons 4 and 5 via software as shown above.
**click to enlarge**
Yes, the office features are nice, but better
are its NetJump, LuckyJump and custom features, all of which can be assigned
to all buttons except the double-click button. Let's have a more
detailed look at how these unique features work...
There are two built-in menus in software that can be
assigned to a button. One will provide common internet-related tasks
and the other will provide quick access to common desktop-related tasks.
**click to enlarge**
On top of these useful menus, their software
will also allow you to create your very own custom command menu by simply
clicking on the "New/Update" button from the settings menu.
|
**click to enlarge** |
**click to enlarge** |
You have plenty of options, including setting a
custom homepage to launch, as well as any application
installed in your system that you frequently use.
**click to enlarge**
There are also a number of generic commands that
can be set. From this menu, you can assign a command button to perform
a number of common tasks most tend to use on a daily basis.
**click to enlarge**
You have plenty of flexibility when creating
your own custom menu. You can combine a number of commands, including
application launch, website launch and common tasks such as copy, paste, cut
and delete. There are some very minor bugs when creating a few, but it
works very well.
Finally, a sample custom menu created when
testing the product. You can include as many commands as you wish and
combine or sort each to your liking.
|
