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Product Reviewed: VM-1 Vmouse Product Page Manufacturer: AVB Home Page Suggested Retail Price: Unspecified

Now that we've covered a mouse with no balls, how's this for a change-a mouse that vibrates! The purpose of this function, of course, is not so you can use the mouse with other body parts, but to give you a sense of "feel" of what's going on as you use your computer.

Attempts to add a sense of "feel" to your mouse have been made by many companies in the past. For example, Logitech, my maker of choice for computer rodents, had a product called the WingMan Force Feedback. This product was a mouse designed specifically for gaming. Basically, it functions with a mouse stuck onto a mouse pad and then the mouse pad applies force to the mouse, giving the user a sense of force and feel in their hands. This worked fine, but there are a few limitations that I know I, personally, would hate. The main limitation is that because the mouse is secured onto the mouse pad, there's no way of lifting it up. When I mouse, I find that I always lift my mouse to keep it in the middle of the pad, and, without the capability of lifting the mouse, it would be like virtually paralyzing my mousing abilities.

Logitech's newest mouse, the iFeel, is a mouse that works on a very different concept. It uses a vibration mechanism to help to deliver varying vibrations to the hand of the user. Using software, it monitors the texture of where the mouse rolls over on the screen, and adjusts the strength of the vibrations accordingly. For example, if you roll your mouse over the border of a window, the mouse will "jump" slightly, simulating the effect that you're actually rolling your hand across the border of the window.

AVB's method of delivering the sense of "feel" to the user's hand is similar, yet very different to that of Logitech's iFeel method. The Vmouse is AVB's vibrating mouse and yes, it also uses a vibrating mechanism inside of it to generate varying vibrations. What sets the Vmouse apart from the iFeel is that, while the iFeel's vibrations are dependant on what's on the screen, the Vmouse's vibrations are dependant on sound. So, while you can feel your mouse rolling over a button with the iFeel, you can feel the rolling of a rocket flying across the sky.

First Impressions
The Vmouse is a USB mouse so it comes with a USB connection and also a PS/2 adapter so you can use this mouse on a computer without a USB port. The special part of this mouse is that there are 2 connectors, the USB connector and a sound pass-through connector to connect to a sound card (these connectors are split up in a Y-shape at the end of the main cable). Yes, you do need a sound card to utilize the vibration feature of this mouse, but if you don't have a sound card, you can simply use this mouse as a regular 2-button, wheeled mouse. The connector for the sound card is quite unique as it has a connector to plug into the speaker/line-out of your sound card, and also a pass-through jack so you can still plug in your speakers.

The mouse itself is huge, which could be a problem if you have small hands. For my hands, which are quite "medium-sized," this mouse was slightly too large, so you can imagine the problems that could arise you have a smaller hand. At the front is a turn-knob to control the intensity of the vibrations.

One thing that I must note is that the wheel in between the 2 mouse buttons is very skinny and hard to keep your fingers on. Made out of rubber that is slightly slipperier than you would like to have a mouse wheel be, this wheel was very loose so I could barely notice the "clicks" that I've grown accustomed to sensing with all other mouse wheels. Needless to say, I didn't like the mouse wheel at all.

Powering Up...
Installation of the Vmouse involved all of plugging it into a USB port at the back of the computer and plugging in the sound connector into the free line-out connector of my sound card. One complaint, though, is that I found the sound connector cable to be very short. This means that I can only plug the USB connector into the back of my computer and not into my USB hub because the cable for the sound connector simply would not reach (it's only a few inches long). After I plugged it in, Windows automatically detected it and I could use it just like any other regular mice. To use the vibration feature of the mouse, I had to install the software included on the floppy disk.

After all was installed, I cranked up the vibration control on the mouse and played an MP3 file. Sure enough, I could feel the music in my hands! Although sometimes the vibrations didn't quite match up with the beat of the music, the vibrations I sure felt.

I then fired up Quake 3 and played a game just to test it out (okay, maybe a couple games, but who's counting?). Sure enough, I could feel some of the action in the game.

Here's where things start to get annoying. For most of the game, I couldn't feel anything, but it's only when I fired a rocket that I felt it (because of the keep, roaring sound). If I cranked up the vibration control any higher, I wouldn't be able to control the mouse when I fired the rocket, but if I turned it down to a point where I could control the mouse again when firing a rocket, I couldn't feel anything else. I had expected to feel jolts when the machinegun was firing, but because of the previously mentioned annoyance, I didn't feel anything except for when using the rocket launcher. What a disappointment.

Conclusion
It's sad to say that I really can't find a use for this mouse. When using it in games, only the really deep, roaring sounds would be felt, and if the vibration control was turned up to generate vibrations for the other sounds, the mouse would be hard to control when the roaring sounds appeared again. Sure, it worked fine for MP3's, but that really doesn't add much to the value of this product either.

Add on the fact that this mouse is larger than others found on the market and the poorly designed wheel, and you really don't have much to praise for.

Pros Vibration capabilities USB for ease of installation; PS/2 adapter for compatibility Big physical size; good for big hands Cons Vibration technology, main selling point for product, not effective; either too strong or too weak Big physical size; bad for small-medium sized hands

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