 Top of the line mouse! (detailed description and update guide) |
| Review Date: October 12, 2007 |
| Reviewer: L. Chapman, Alberta, Canada |
I rarely comment on any products, but given the poor rating that this product has had because of poor driver & firmware execution upon its initial release, I decided to add a review.
I'll start out by saying that I am a civil engineer, and I do a great deal of drafting and design at work. I am extremely picky about the mouse I use for drafting purposes, and recently (after a monitor upgrade) I went looking for a new mouse, due to the fact that at the high monitor resolution, I couldn't adjust my old optical mouse's pointer speed up fast enough to be useful for drafting.
I went to a local electronics store, and picked up a wireless mouse & keyboard package from Microsoft, thinking that it would be a great thing to be wireless - what a mistake I made! I saw now that nearly every mouse manufacturer out there (I assume to keep up with their competitors) has a new side-scrolling/panning mouse wheel (that I can only assume is useless to 99.9% of the users out there) - I didn't think much of it when I purchased the package, but upon using the mouse, I realized that they made the downward click pressure of the mouse wheel much greater, to prevent accidental clicks when you use the side-scrolling feature, and it made the pan feature in AutoCAD difficult to use, and very hit and miss, as often the wheel would click into the side-pan mode instead of a down-click (useless in AutoCAD). This is absolutely horrible for AutoCAD, due to the fact that the downward center mouse click enables panning. There was also a terrible lag between clicking the pan function, and it actually enabling pan in AutoCAD - I'm sure due to the fact that they try to maximize battery life in wireless mice, so the response isn't instant as with wired mice. After 2 days of use, I promptly returned the setup.
I started looking (and looking, and looking!) for a wired mouse to buy, but had a difficult time finding any good-quality wired mice without the side-scroll/pan feature. Finally, searching on an online retailer's website, I finally stumbled on Razer products, as well as the Microsoft Habu mouse (made by Razer). I passed it by previously in the store, because the packaging looked so ridiculous, and it was marketed as a gaming mouse. I figured it would be overloaded with buttons and side-scroll/pan features, being a gaming mouse. I was very wrong - I looked at the features, and noticed Razer products are absolutely no-nonsense mice - apparently they realized that 10 extra customizable buttons and side-scrolling/panning on mice are not only useless, but difficult to use and undesirable. I went to the store, clicked the display model a bit, and realized that I finally found exactly what I wanted.
I read extensively about the driver/firmware problems, and I tracked down a no-fail guide to updating the firmware and software on the Habu mouse before even attempting to connect it. I downloaded the latest software from the Razer website, and installed it without any problem using the no-fail guide (see below). I started using it, and all I can say is "Wow!" All of the functionality of my old mouse, excellent wheel click pressure, instant response, excellent tracking, fully customizable sensitivity in both x and y-directions, fully customizable buttons, and sensitivity settings so high that you can make the mouse useless! (For those of you who have no idea what they mean when they talk about mouse resolution (I previously didn't understand it either, before purchasing the product) is that basically you can set this mouse to 1 of 3 different resolution settings, which sets the overall sensitivity of the mouse. You can, however, still adjust the sensitivity of the mouse at any of these 3 resolution settings, to make the mouse less sensitive, if you find the speed too fast.) The "polling rate" also has three setting, which, as far as I can tell from mouse use and reading about polling rate on the internet, adjusts the number of readings the mouse submits to the computer about position, to make the mouse pointer more accurate and smooth. (To tell you the truth, I don't see much of a perceptible change when adjusting the polling rate from the smallest setting to the highest.)
The only negative on this mouse is that there are internal lights with this mouse, which I found not only tacky but distracting. You can turn them off with the Razer configurator, but the lights always turn back on after a cold start, a reboot, or return from standby. You have to reset the lights in the configurator (even though the configurator reports the lights as set to "off") every time. This was obviously a firmware or software problem, and no worries - I contacted Microsoft tech support, and they are aware of the issue. Their development team is going to fix this problem in the next driver/firmware release.
I find it horrible that the truly excellent hardware was plagued by initial software/firmware problems, doing a great deal of damage to user opinion's of the product. I wish Microsoft had more thoroughly tested the software before releasing the product, but I suppose there is always pressure to deliver products to store shelves before they have undergone thorough testing. Rest assured, after applying the latest driver and firmware update, you will have an excellent mouse in your hand!
Here is a summary of the online instructions for updating the software (note: this guide assumes you already have the Habu mouse installed on your system with an old version of the software - adjust the guide accordingly if you just purchased the mouse and are doing a fresh install of the latest software from the Razer website).
Installation Instructions:
- make sure the Habu mouse is plugged in
- uninstall all Habu software (which is just the driver pack), and reboot your computer
- install the latest drivers from update package downloaded from Razer's website, from a clean slate
- (if you get this message) say "YES" to the windows warning about non-WHQL drivers
- VERY IMPORTANT! - say "NO" to the "reboot now" option, and navigate to the firmware folder (which is part of the driver package), and install the new firmware
- after the installation program reports that the firmware was successfully installed, unplug and re-plug the Habu
- reboot your computer
NOTE: It's very important NOT to reboot before attempting the firmware update because the operating system and the drivers see the mouse ONLY after the driver installation. After a reboot with the old firmware, the mouse was never detectable by the drivers again. It seems that the Habu drivers will only detect a mouse after a reboot with (at least) version 2.01 firmware installed.
******11 Month Update******
After about 9 months of use, the mouse developed a click problem with the left mouse button - it often registers twice when clicked, which gets very annoying. And, as I mentioned above, I already used my free 90 day consultation (about the problem with the mouse lights turning back on after reboot - incidentally, they haven't yet fixed the problem with a promised firmware update, 11 months after Microsoft said that they were aware of this issue) - as a result, to send the mouse in under the three year warranty, I would have to pay $45 up front for them to give me the ok and send me their return shipping information. I have to hand it to Microsoft - they sure have figured out a great way to avoid warranty costs. I have recently purchased a Logitech MX518 (no more Microsoft / Razer mice for me!), so hopefully it will last better than the Habu. |
Nice joint effort! Excellent mouse
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| Review Date: March 28, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Garry M. Glover, |
I got this after the teflon feet of my logitech G5 wore out and the replacements that I got were pretty bad... Plus I wanted TWO side buttons instead of the one that the G5 has.
The Software that this mouse comes with is pretty sweet. I don't have a need for 5 profiles to be saved in the mouse but if I ever do the option is there. The other thing is that I hate reconfiguring my mouse's resolutions each time I fresh install my OS, this mouse has onboard memory and keeps all this info for me(I just wish it would remember the setting I have for turning off the lights...). I also noticed that the resolution changing software is more responsive in some games than the Logitech Setpoint software is and has a smaller memory footprint.
My only complaint is that it feels a litte cheap compared to the G5(not as solid). But I do like the way it fits my hands like Microsoft mice are known for. |
Habu Mouse
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| Review Date: March 8, 2007 |
| Reviewer: D. Vu, Rockwall, Tx Usa |
| Great mouse for gaming. Everything is great on it but I ran had a little trouble with the driver update and the firmware update. |
Habu
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| Review Date: March 9, 2007 |
| Reviewer: J. Arnold, |
| Not THAT hard to install for me, just install all software versions then the firmware you should be fine, mouse feels and works like a charm. |
Great mouse for the money
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| Review Date: May 14, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Damir Krehic, Saint Cloud, MN USA |
Yes, like the previous reviews said, there is an issue with the drivers/firmware BUT once you follow the directions listed below, it works like a dream. The mouse is responsive and feels great. It took me a while to realize what a great mouse this is, the precision for FPS is great, turn it up or down as you please ... the two little buttons that adjust the sensitivity are easy to use.
For the money, this mouse is a steal. |
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