A few months ago, I began to experience pain along the top of my right forearm. Insert your masturbation jokes here, but realize that this is the arm I use for directing my mouse, and as a professional online poker player, I was spending hours every day moving and clicking my mouse.
With a little research, I found the EVO Vertical Mouse:
As the name implies, you hold an EVO mouse with your fingers vertical, as though you were shaking someone’s hand. This eliminates the need to twist your forearm, enabling you to hold it straight in what feels like a more natural position.
There are some medical/scientific argument on Evoluent’s website for why this grip is preferable to the traditional, arm-twisting method of manipulating a mouse. I don’t nearly enough about ergonomics to evaluate those claims, but I do know that my pain went away within a week of switching to an EVO Vertical Mouse. To me, that was worth the $100 that Evoluent charges to buy directly from their website.
Specifically, I bought the EVO 3, which is the only wireless model available. I believe it has fewer buttons than the EVO 4, but it still has more than my old mouse, which is huge for getting the most out of Table Ninja. There are left, right, and middle (or top, bottom, and middle, really) buttons for your fingers plus a scroll wheel and a thumb button.
I found the EVO quick and intuitive to get used to. Any time I’ve switched to using a track ball or a touchpad, it’s taken me days to get used to navigating with the new tool. Not so with the EVO. Although the grip is different, it feels pretty much exactly like using a mouse. The buttons are right where I expect them to be, and I felt right at home on it within an hour.
I haven’t actually used the EVO 4, but I don’t feel like I get particularly much use out of the EVO 3’s wirelessness. It’s too large and akwardly shaped to fit easily in a laptop bag, limiting its portability. Also, the USB adapter is well over an inch long, meaning that it juts prominently out of the side of my laptop and must be removed before putting the computer in a bag for fear of breaking it.
For frequent mouse use at your “home base”, though, I recommend the EVO Vertical Mouse to ease muscle and joint discomfort.
Been looking at getting one of these for a while, thanks for the review.
I guess I’m lucky because I’m pushing 59 and I’ve been keyboarding pretty much several hours every day in one form or another since a teenager typing specs for my parents’ architectural firm (back when we had these things called “typewriters”), and mousing since I got my first “fact Mac” in 1985, and I’ve never had any problems related to either. But I hear all the time about people developing various mouse- and keyboard-related problems, often quite young.
It’s probably a good thing to try something else now rather than wait, as too many people do, until you reach the point where you need Tommy John surgery.
Also, I’ve known a couple cases where the problem wasn’t the shape of the mouse but either (a) the size – they were trying to use a compact mouse, or (b) the weight – they were using a full-size two-battery wireless, which is considerably heavier than a corded mouse of the same size. Another friend of mine is convinced that high-resolution mouses are harder to control and cause more strain. I think you just have to experiment until you find what works.
That would be “fat Mac”.
While I’m on the subject, my fat Mac fell off my desk during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. I picked it up, plugged it back in, and it came right back up with no problems. Pretty impressive for the technology of the time.
I was born into a home with a typewriter (and a huge calculator that plugged into the wall and came out once a year when it was time to do taxes). I think I was about 7 when we got our first computer.
Looks pretty cool. I use a Wacom tablet and pen. I should also note I am a video editor/graphic designer so it is uber helpful. I sit for at least 8 hours a day, 5 days a week at an editing station clicking away… And then I go home and play poker at night 😉
But I found that using the pen seems to accomplish what this mouse does. You can avoid doin the twist. Plus I like having the tablet so I can place it in my lap and lean back if I want to.
Still haven’t emailed you yet Andrew. Working on a major project so I have been beyond swamped.
I got a cheap one of these to try, but the cheap one is a little spazy. I’ve seen the full scale monitor in use though – extremely impressive.