Why You Can Trust CNET Microsoft Comfort Mouse 3000 review: Microsoft Comfort Mouse 3000
The Comfort Mouse is a basic mouse option at a basic price. Nothing fancy, but nothing terrible, either.
Design
Microsoft has had a long history of having a couple of basic mice in its line-up. These aren't the star products in the line, bedecked with fancy new experimental features, but have, instead, the workhorse-style numbers that eschew both doodads and design notes. That's the Comfort Mouse 3000 in a nutshell, really. It's an all-black cabled mouse with a light diamond pattern inlaid on the lower sides, two mice buttons and a clickable scroll wheel.
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
We don't normally comment that much on packaging in our reviews, but the Comfort Mouse 3000 drew our ire in this respect. It's presented in a display-style box that undoubtedly looks good on a store shelf, but which is quite tricky to actually open without tearing. Needless to say, our pristine review sample rather quickly had a tear in the packaging. We would apologise to Microsoft for this problem, were it not a problem that Microsoft itself had caused.
Features
Like the recently reviewed Express Mouse, and as mentioned in the design paragraph, the Comfort Mouse 3000 is a two-button, USB-connected mouse. That's what you pay the low entry price for, and that's exactly what you get. It features Microsoft's BlueTrack technology, which means that the optical laser has a pleasant blue hue and, more specifically, that it'll track over a wider variety of surfaces with greater precision — at least in theory.
Also in common with the Express Mouse is the inclusion of a 73-page Microsoft Product Guide, filled with information about products that have nothing to do with the Comfort Mouse 3000, as well as a slender two-page, two-line setup guide that boils down to plugging the mouse in and telling you to download software that you almost certainly don't need for a mouse this simple.
Performance
The Comfort Mouse 3000's style might be simple, but the diamond pattern inlaid on it does give it a small amount of, dare we say it, slightly comfortable grip. The shape of the mouse should make it suitable for both right- and left-handed use, although we only tested it with right-handed users. Sorry to all the southpaws out there; we're speculating here.
Accuracy was decent across a range of tested surfaces, although, as with other BlueTrack devices, if you do have to use it on a glass-topped surface, you'll see accuracy go right out the window. For most users of this mouse, this is unlikely to be a particular problem.
Conclusion
The Comfort Mouse 3000 isn't the most comfortable mouse we've ever used, but that's more down to its shape and desire to work for as many possible hand shapes and sizes as possible. It's an entirely workable mouse, albeit not a terribly fancy one, but what would you expect for under thirty bucks?