Optical or Laser Mouse?

My Razer Deathadder mouse is failing me. I love how well this mouse has worked for me, but it hasn't lasted very long. So I am looking at getting a new mouse. Is there any reason to get either optical or laser? My Razer is optical, and I have never owned a laser mouse, but some of them seem to get the highest ratings. My uses are just general basic PC stuff and Photoshop editing. Also is a higher DPI Movement Resolution better for photo work?

I rarely use a traditional mouse these days, for PS it's mostly a tablet, far better for making selections, along with keyboard shortcuts.  I also use the pen like a mouse for menu work etc.  I still have the mouse attached and use it periodically.  In fact I have a bar mouse, a tablet and a regular MS Intellimouse attached and running on my system and swap between them freely.

If you have any sort of neck pain, varying your tasks and working in front of you, rather than reaching out to one side to use a mouse will do your neck a big favour, this from personal experience.

I've been using a logitech mx laser for years without any issues Tim. I like the way it fits into my hand.

Thanks for the suggestions guys; however, my questions are quite specific in this one

1) Which is better "optical" or "laser, and why?

2) Is a higher value DPI "movement resolution" better and why (or why not)? Not really sure what this function means?

Laser tends to be more accurate. That said I use both and notice little difference but some people feel there is a significant accuracy difference.

Before I got my current mouse I did a lot of research about what type of mouse is more accurate. The answer I found was that Gaming mice are the most accurate. In addition most Gaming mice are wired not wireless by a wide margin. I ended up getting a Logitech G 400S. Been very happy with it. In my opinion there is no need to get a very expensive gaming mouse as all the higher price does is buy you more buttons and features that you won't use in processing images.

Get a medium or small Wacom Tablet. The pen will give you the best movement resolution when you want it in Photoshop, and you can use the Wacom mouse, which has lower resolution, when browsing the internet etc. The tablet is connected and powered by a long usb cable but the pen and mouse are wireless with no batteries. You can also get a wireless tablet but you will be changing batteries frequently.

Thanks EJ . . . . that's what I thought, but also thought it worth asking here just to be sure before i buy one. I won;t worry about laser or optical and just get the best deal for good quality.

So no one knows the answer to #2? From what I can find doing searches, the higher DPI resolution is not really necessary or very noticeable. So probably also not worth worrying about.

I would think you would want your pointing device resolution to be perhaps three times or at least equal to the image pixel resolution you are working at on your canvas. If equal, any slight hand jitter will result in jumping among pixels as you draw you boundaries.

signgrap wrote:... In my opinion there is no need to get a very expensive gaming mouse as all the higher price does is buy you more buttons and features that you won't use in processing images.

Hence his Razer Deathadder   It's a gaming mouse but not the most complicated one.

If you need more resolution for photo editing work, zoom in just use "ctrl + " to step through the presets resolutions, I never found my self wanting for resolution that way. I would still recommend you consider a tablet as well, you can have both that and a mouse plugged in, to me there's no contest it is far easier to make selection using the pen than a mouse.

DChan wrote: Hence his Razer Deathadder   It's a gaming mouse but not the most complicated one.

Exactly! . . . . . . This Razer has been perfect for me and I am not looking for anything more than what it has offered me. However, the left click is starting to fail and double clicks a lot of the time now (when not intended), which is a major PITA!. I have researched this issue and apparently it is fairly common and especially common to this model mouse. I am not looking for a tablet or anything more than a simple gaming mouse like the one I have. I can do my own research and decide on my own mouse choice, but I was finding it a bit difficult to choose without answers to my two questions. The first one (optical vs laser) has been answered, but I am still in the dark on the second one. I suppose if it was a big important feature, there would have been people jumping in all over the place with answers. Since no one seems to even know what this feature is or means, I will probably just ignore it and get a decent gaming mouse replacement. Most of them are in the 4000 DPI and up range anyway.

If anyone is interested, this is the mouse I ended up ordering: http://www.ncix.com/detail/steelseries- ... 9-1334.htm

Laser, supposed to be very smooth and accurate, and a reasonably high DPI movement resolution. It is about half the price I paid for my Razer Deathadder, but hoping it is going to perform equally as well, yet not fail on me within a year or so.