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Initially I wasn't that impressed with the Gigabyte Aivia Xenon TouchPad Mouse. It is extremely light to move around and adding the two AAA batteries only increases the weight a little. I opted for a thick CM Storm mouse pad to help maintain smooth movement on a slippery surface.
The boxy shape of the mouse isn't instantly a design that I found compelling, or comfortable to use. After half an hour I found my rather large hands adapting to the shape a little.
My biggest issue with the Aivia Xenon mouse is the position of the right mouse button. There is no way to configure the primary top surface to accept both left and right button functionality. You therefore have to stretch your third (or fourth) finger over the corner of the mouse, pressing the side mounted button when needed.
After the first hour I was mentally forcing myself to stop pressing the right side of the top surface. It would be safe to say that we are all used to the left and right button taking up equal space along the top of the mouse.
Moving a finger down the side of a boxy chassis is awkward to do on a regular basis, and I found my finger would accidentally click the thinner button spaced physically closer to the hand. To compound the frustration when this button is accidentally pressed it toggles the ‘free scroll' mode, stopping the mouse pointer from moving completely.
Due to the small size of the Gigabyte Aivia Xenon my fingers were often close to the top edge of the mouse. Not a problem you might think, but I noticed that sometimes the mouse didn't seem to register a click when I pressed down.
The official Gigabyte diagrams highlight a dotted blue area called the ‘operation zone' (image above), and it would seem that there are a few millimeters on all corners which will not register activity.
To seek a second opinion on this problem I asked a (physically small) teenage clan gamer to play with the mouse for a full day. He didn't experience the ‘edge' problem, but he did mention that the limited DPI resolution was more of a concern for him, especially with first person shooters. He wasn't impressed.
Gaming with this mouse is not the best experience. I don't seek out mice with extraordinarily high sensitivity ratings to play games. Regular readers will remember my review of the CM Storm Sentinel Advance II Mouse – I found the best settings to be around 2,000 dpi. Opinions on this will obviously vary greatly.
Sadly, there were times when I felt 1,000 dpi just wasn't quite high enough, especially when gaming. Thankfully many games have a sensitivity option, however it never seems quite as good as native sensor settings.
When using Windows 7 on a 30 inch screen, 1,000 dpi on this mouse was relatively comfortable, although I used the Windows 7 mouse properties panel to enhance the pointer precision and increase the speed just past the half way point. This was ideal for Adobe Photoshop and other professional applications.
In this regard the mouse tracking is very smooth and impressive, although I still found myself flailing awkwardly for the right mouse button.
Touchpad mode is quite impressive initially, and just as good as a quality laptop trackpad experience. That said, I tend to try and avoid using a laptop trackpad at all when possible, opting for a small bluetooth mouse, such as the Razer Orochi.
The Aivia Xenon TouchPad has been set up with a side section just for scrolling as can be seen in the image above. Sadly, the ‘free scrolling' and right click button are now underneath the mouse which is also impossible to access, without moving your hand completely from the Touchpad zone.
I found the greatest use for this mode was when I had a computer attached to a television and wanted to control the mouse pointer directly with a finger. If i was being completely honest however I would still prefer to use my long standing Gyration Universal MediaPC remote and keyboard suite as shown above.
