DecisionalReview.info

If it ain’t broke, why break it?

First, I would like to say that I love my original [discontinued] Gyration Ultra. It was first generation and performed incredibly for a good six or seven years. Unfortunately, due to planned obsolescence, I could not service the worn out batteries in the molded battery pack and decided to try one of Gyration’s latest incarnations - the Gyration “Air Mouse” with MotionSense (it’s the product with the catatonic female yuppy jumping in the air). Unfortunately, the company decided not to improve on an incredible product, and really screwed up every good thing about the original.

First, durability - it feels extremely cheap and that you could crush it or snap the pieces apart by squeezing it. To it’s credit, I do believe it could withstand a drop from a chair and I did give it a squeeze test, but the battery cover feels as though it will fail.

Second, ergonomics - unfortunately, this is the most poorly conceived design I’ve ever experienced. Imagine holding a regular cheap mouse and trying to use the scroll wheel and clicking buttons that your grip is always at least partially depressing (the buttons cover 85% of the top side). This is made only worse by the fact that it has no weight to it, and that you have to hold an awkwardly placed cursor-activation trigger making the “egg” seem slippery. Unlike the original pistol-gripped Gyration Ultra, this low-end model is so awkward to hold that it hurts my wrist and strains the pollicis muscles (meaty thumb part) after a minute of surfing. Moreover, hand size has nothing to due with these design flaws.

Third, control - this awkwardness makes it hard to wave the cursor outward (from your body) since the odd handling limits your range of motion, and clicking/not clicking buttons is a serious pain in the arse. Two more issues: sometimes the thing can’t wake up and worst of all - since it’s so awkward - if you let go of the motion trigger because you’ve centered on an onscreen button the weightless awkward piece of crap “jumps” because of this tiny motion and you miss the mark. Alternatively, (because it’s so hard to hold) keeping the trigger depressed while repositioning your thumb to right/left click something makes it start to slip out of your hand. It almost feels like squeezing a lathered bar of soap that wants to jump out of your hand.

Anyway, I’m going to exchange it and pay the difference for the next model up and write a review for that as well. And hopefully I don’t end up buying a Logitec mouse or breaking into my old Gyration Ultra’s molded case to replace the worn out batteries.

PS - in case Gyration ever reads this, here’s what they should do: re-release the Gyration Ultra with a wider keyboard that doesn’t fall between your knees, design serviceable batteries, and get rid of the charging cradle. Also, you can make it so that setting it on a flat surface depresses a plate or push-button switch that activates the laser mouse feature instead of having a sensor sucking batter power the entire time it’s operating. And why not plug the mouse in instead of having a cradle? Or make it functional as a laser mouse as it charges in the cradle. Does it really need to be unusable as it charges?

Update (5/19/2012): I also found some auctions for this item here.

The featured review for this product, Gyration GYM2100NA Air Mouse Electronics, was written by CoopElectric.

The average rating for this item is 2 out of 5 stars, according to 3 reviews.