Rare: an Asus product not lasting the distance; awaiting its successor

I see it was only 19 months ago since I bought the Asus ROG Strix Evolve mouse. A mouse that cost several times what a regular one does, claiming the switches would last 50 million clicks. It has now developed a fault, and I wouldn’t even consider myself a heavy user. I’m certainly not a gamer.

Mice seem to last shorter and shorter periods. An old Intellimouse 1.1 lasted from 2002 to 2013. Its successor (after trying badly made Logitechs) Microsoft mouse lasted from 2015 to 2020. Here is the latest lasting 19 months.

Its problem is that a single click is being recorded as two clicks, with increasing frequency. Right now, a very cheap no-name unit bought in August 2021 is the daily driver with my desktop PC, and one of the earlier ones will now have to go with my laptop. It’s reasonably comfortable because the size is (almost) right (the biggest criterion for me), it’s light, and it works. Those switches won’t last 50 million clicks and the unit feels cheaply made, but right now I need something usable, and most mice are just too small. I even saw an article testing mice for ‘large hands’, and I can tell you in no uncertain terms that they are for medium hands at best.

A Delux M625 is on its way now from Aliexpress (here’s the seller’s link). I’ve never heard of the brand before, but one Tweeter who responded to me says he has tried one, and found it acceptable. What sold it? None of the features that I find useless (a rapid fire button for gaming, RGB lighting effects that you never see because your hand is on the mouse and your eyes are on the screen, high DPI up to 24,000) but three simple figures: width, length, height.

The Microsoft Intellimouse 1.1, which I have raved about for decades, measures 126 by 68·1 by 39·3 mm. A bit of height helps so I don’t mind if a mouse exceeds 40 mm.

The Delux vendor claims 130·6 by 68·9 by 42·5 mm. That sounds very comfortable to me, as width is very important (something the Asus didn’t have, with my ring finger off the body of the mouse and on to the mouse pad). The no-name could be better, too. In a few weeks, I should know.

I had been so desperate after coming up empty with local sellers I even looked on Amazon. But I couldn’t be arsed converting Imperial measurements to metric, which the majority of the world uses. Jeff’s mob can carry on abusing workers and selling to their own country.

As to the Asus, caveat emptor: it hasn’t even lasted two years reliably.


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4 thoughts on “Rare: an Asus product not lasting the distance; awaiting its successor

  1. So far, my two favorite mouse devices are Logitech wireless and HP. Not even sure what the models are; mine are very, very old. Many years old, not months. I don’t think I’ve had a mouse die on me since the days of the old ones that had rubber balls. (Remember the old IBM memo – a joke, of course – on “Mouse Balls as FRUs”? LOL I learned to do delicate surgery on those things with rubbing alcohol Q-tips, and tweezers, but eventually, the patient dies.)

  2. It’s good yours have lasted the distance. The Logitechs I owned all died in less than two years. (Some travelled with me in the laptop bag, and were not used as much as the desktop mouse, so for them to die either meant they got knocked a lot inside the bag, or they were badly made to begin with.) Dad had an HP mouse, and that struggled for years, losing charge regularly. I can’t remember what happened to our rubber ball mice—the oldest ones probably died, the later ones just got superseded and might have still been alive when we made the switch.

  3. The biggest problem with the rubber ball mice was ambient LINT. The little plastic rollers would eventually develop a sort of paper tape around them which had to be sliced through with an Xacto knife and pulled out with tweezers. The rollers and the rubber ball then had to be thoroughly cleaned so that the process could begin again. You could keep them going for a long time, with this sort of maintenance, but it got old, after a while.

    I buy very simple mouse devices – I mean, two buttons, a wheel, and bluetooth capability. That’s it. No “ergonomic” nonsense, no fancy lights, no extra fiddly bits. I cannot use a trackball to save my life. So I don’t know – I’m guessing that you either bought something fancier than the $12-19 Logitechs, or the old giveaway HP mouse I got, years ago – still in the box years after its grandchildren were introduced to the market – or you banged them up pretty badly in that laptop bag! My HP takes actual BATTERIES. (So did the Logitechs.) So “losing a charge” may be your first clue. LOL Fancy pants.

  4. I got really good at cleaning mice, including those rollers you mention.

    I’d happily go with simple if they fitted my hands. I prefer wired, so even batteries are too fancy for me. For me, symmetrical is better than asymmetrical, too (a lot of “ergonomic” ones are the latter). But since the 2000s, they’ve shrunk, and now a “standard” mouse is tiny. I rest my hand on the mouse, not claw it.

    Those cheap Logitechs are too small and they flake out after 18 months. I’ve recycled plenty of those (two travel mice, and I think I used a couple as my dailies on the desktop). The only “fancy” thing I like are a couple of side buttons to go forward and back one web page. Once I’ve established the right size, I’ll cope with things like flashing lights, but I can’t really see the point of them since I’m not looking at the mouse while I work, and my hand is obscuring it anyway!

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