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The Gigabyte Aivia Xenon TouchPad Mouse is a unique design and has grabbed plenty of attention recently from the public. When I first saw the product I was impressed with the concept and was really looking forward to getting my hands on it for a longer period of time.
First impressions unfortunately didn't live up to my self inflicted hype. The Aivia Xenon is very small and large hands just dwarf the product completely. This makes it less than intuitive to use as fingers overhang the top area of the chassis.
There are several millimeters on each edge of the mouse which don't register at all so I found myself often readjusting my hand position to target the active section across the top. If you have small hands then it should be a more positive experience.
After much perseverance over the course of several days my hand adjusted to the light weight and diminutive size reasonably well. The 1,000 dpi resolution is far from state of the art, but in the majority of circumstances it was actually quite responsive and easy to use, particularly with applications such as Adobe Photoshop.
There is however a massive issue with the mouse which I simply couldn't overcome, no matter how hard I tried.
The position of the right mouse button is unforgivable in my opinion. It is almost unusable, offset on the side of the mouse chassis. This alone would make me question the research and development stage of the product creation. Did no one raise a concern with this position?
It is even more awkward to access in Touchpad mode as the mouse is rotated 90 degrees to the right, moving the button position to the underside of the chassis, bottom right. It doesn't help that Gigabyte have positioned a ‘free scrolling' button millimeters from this button. If you accidentally press this, then the mouse pointer refuses to respond to general movement, until it is pressed again.
The Aivia Xenon is almost a fantastic product, but not quite. It falls short of greatness.
Gigabyte need to make it 20 percent larger and find a way to incorporate the right mouse button into the right side of the top panel. If they can do this and increase the engine sensitivity to a maximum of 2,400 dpi then it would be a more viable option for a wider audience. Building a little slot into the bottom of the chassis to store the tiny receiver would also be beneficial for laptop users.
UK pricing has yet to be confirmed, however we are expecting it to cost around £30 inc vat.
The Gigabyte Aivia Xenon TouchPad Mouse is certainly worth a look if you are interested in using a new device with your computer, but I would be surprised if it replaces a main system mouse.
Pros:
- Looks great.
- 1,000 dpi sensor is surprisingly capable.
- versatile gesture commands.
- wireless.
- good option for a media center environment.
- software download for custom configurations.
Cons:
- gamers will want more than 1,000 dpi.
- right mouse button is awkward to access in both modes.
- not suited for big hands.
- No location in the chassis to store the tiny receiver.
- No weighting system.
Kitguru says: If you want to play with a new gadget it is certainly worth a look, even with the aforementioned problems. I hope to see some improvements with the next revision.
