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Hippus HandshoeMouse

It's a saddle for your hand

Your fingers curl naturally over to the front of the unit, with your first and second fingers resting against front-mounted mouse buttons. By positioning the buttons at the front rather than on top, there is no risk of the weight of your fingers accidentally clicking one of them, so there is no need to keep your fingers rigid. The buttons and scrollwheel on the HandshoeMouse are not hair-triggers either, so even heavy-handed users should not find themselves firing off in error.

Hippus HandshoeMouse

The curled sides let you tip the mouse to reposition it

In use, the HandshoeMouse is certainly comfortable but it does require plenty of practice. The temptation to grip the device between your thumb and little finger in order to lift it up for repositioning, for example, is almost irresistible.

Hippus has thought about this, however, and designed the base of the mouse to curl up at the sides. This allows you to tilt and drag the unit without having to lift it: while tilted in this manner, the optical tracking is inoperative, leaving your mouse cursor motionless on-screen.

With usability still in mind, Hippus has ensured the device is Plug and Play, requiring no drivers on either Windows or Mac platforms. The company warns there may be compatibility issues with graphics tablets, but we experienced none of these with the HandshoeMouse sharing a PC with a Wacom Intuos3 tablet.

Hippus HandshoeMouse

In the right hands, gripping action is avoided but left-handers will go out of pocket

The big challenge, though, is finding enough desk space for such a large mouse. If we devoted this amount of desk space for a conventional mouse, half our RSI risk might be negated anyway. Worse, the USB connector sticks out stiffly at the front by an additional couple of centimetres, so make sure you clear away any coffee cups.

Next page: Verdict

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