Evoluent VerticalMouse Ergonomic Vertical Mouse

Best Position for wrist, natural rather than twisted

The most important feature of the ergonomic mouse for me is the position of my wrist.

Holding the mouse: As you can see in the pictures, for a normal mouse, my wrist is turned, and is not in a straight line with my elbow, causing a twist in the wrist, which would make my wrist get tired and need rest from holding the mouse.

In the last picture, holding the ergonomic mouse, my wrist is in a normal resting position, a straight line with my elbow, with no pressure on the wrist at all, very relaxing and comfortable. The only part of my hand is moving my fingers.

Moving the mouse: with a normal mouse, I have to use my wrist to move the cursor. with the ergonomic mouse, the movie is from the elbow, making it a lot more comfortable to move the mouse.

There are a lot of carpal tunnel syndrome articles out there, and you could read them yourself, but having my wrist in a natural position is better than in a twisted position.

Was NOT NEW

Gave it a 1 only because it was not new and I wanted to show people how to spot a used mouse, so look closely.....

It Might be hard to see in the pics but the edges of the base pads were marred & there was material in the seam. The top of the top button had scuff marks, the box was torn.... It was marketed as a new product, yet it was clearly used. I will give whomever credit for doing an amazing job of trying to buff out everything and if you just looked at the top without looking to closely, it looks new, but I am an extremely heavy user and I need every microsecond of use out of this mouse, so knowing it was used by someone else and not knowing how it was taken or not taken care of is critical.

That said, Evoluent is the ONLY mouse i use anymore because it is so incredibly comfortable for me to use. I am a Real Estate Appraiser and I write reports with my hand on that mouse for hours upon hours a day. Evoluent is amazingly comfortable, but i know every hand and wrist is different so there are some that don't like it. For met its perfect, but if I am going to pay for a new mouse, I expect a new mouse.

Mouse comfy/Software Junk!

This mouse is kind of annoying (to say the least) it barely ever holds the keys you bind to it. Meaning they will reset the next time you turn computer on. The drivers are the most buggy piece of software I think I've ever seen. I have to restart my computer probably 12 times a week and Uninstall and reinstall the software for a mere couple hours of usage before it fails again and everything has to be deleted and reset from scratch. The only thing saving this from a flat 0 star is its very comfortable and helps my tendonitis, just a shame the programmers here don't seem to properly patch/update software because this has happened the entire year I've had this mouse...

Fantastic!

I love this mouse! I’ve suffered severe brachial plexus for 5 months. I bought a keyboard with out a number Pad and this mouse. This mouse changed everything. It definitely takes some use getting used to. I use those for work. I work an 8 hour a day job from home.

Ergonomically great, finish poor, mouse buttons wear out.

I love the ergonomics and I've been using Evoluent Vertical Mice for a number of iterations over the last 9 years. As mentioned by others the finish dissolves and looks nasty after some use. I wish they would sell a mouse without any coatings on it.

The fact I've had so many of these mice shows a combination of my appreciation for how they feel, and that they tend to fail in some way. Older models had a rubber piece near the base come loose and the model 4 seems to have issues with the top button switch failing by generating double clicks after some use. I'm not saying a mouse can never fail, I just wish that the finish and switches would hold up better.

Five Stars

This is the best mouse on the market today! The only drawback - poor packaging.

It took a while to get used to but my hand feels great, a lot less pain

I use this mouse 10hrs a day. It took a while to get used to but my hand feels great, a lot less pain!!!! The buttons are on the side so it makes your hand squeeze instead of clicking down into the table. At first the mouse would move to the left slightly when you click. this is ok unless you need accuracy clicking like working in CAD. I mad a lot of mistakes because i'm moving fast.

-the bad

the finish on it immediately started to ware off and looks pretty bad now after a couple of months. I think its overpriced, but i needed it

Expensive and initially gaudy, but a true vertical mouse.

I have the wired version because I read all the negative reviews of the wireless / bluetooth version. Purchased Jan 2016.

Pros: Does what it says on the tin. It's a vertical mouse.

Cons: I had an earlier version of an Evoluent and it was much less gaudy and it was easier to setup on osx.

- Bright blue light on the back of the mouse is pointless, distracting, and burns battery power even when the laptop is closed. I'm generally opposed to blue LEDs but this one is particularly distracting and serves no value. This is my only major complaint.

- The driver software allows you to select actions to assign to all the extra buttons, but they don't allow you to actually customize. I'd like to have the 5/6 buttons near the thumb select next or previous tab on my browser, but that's not an option they thought to put in the dropdown, so I'm out of luck. I'd also like to switch spaces with a chorded press (6+2 or something) but it requires changing the keyboard shortcuts to the osx default settings. The Anker mouse does not have this restriction, it allows you to record whatever keypresses you'd like to attach to the extra buttons.

- Drivers: On my MacBook, running OSX 10.11, the driver install is required to get functionality out of buttons other than the basic two, and the driver install requires a 1999 style reboot of the whole computer. For a mouse, this is excessive.

- The website has irritating autoplaying video, which isn't great for downloading the drivers in an office environment without being distracting to others. The direct download for the osx drivers is here: [...]

Update (May 2016):

After about 4 month of use, one of the thumb buttons failed. I believe the failure was a component failure, not a design failure. Regardless, Evoluent was very helpful to send me a replacement under warranty. While they had my mouse, they noticed I'd taped over the blue light, which is my biggest complaint. Here is part of the email they sent as a reply:

If you don't like logo, you can turn it off.

Logo off :

Unplug the VM4, press and hold down "-" pointer speed switch, plug in the

mouse and release the pointer speed "-" switch.

Logo on:

Unplug the VM4, press and hold down "+" pointer speed switch, plug in the

mouse and release the pointer speed "+" switch.

okay, but too small.

I have a slightly older version of this mouse. unfortunately the mouse wheel has started to go out on it so I've been looking for another vertical mouse. The mouse has worked okay for some years. The problem is that I've never used it as intended since the mouse is too small, holding it as intended results in the first joint (above knuckle) of my fingers resting squarely on the button. I attached a photo of how I normally hold the mouse.

Good, but has an annoying (and unnecessary) 3 year lifespan

I like this mouse. I've used it every day for 3+ years. Recently, though, the matte dark grey finish at the back and sides of the mouse has started to wear off, which leaves it feeling grimy and sticky, no matter what you do about it. The only reason I can possibly fathom that the manufacturer put this coating on the mouse is, in fact, to coerce you into buying a new $100 mouse every 3 years. The plastic underneath is a smooth and totally inoffensive color and texture.

Jan Hempstead

September 5, 2015

Almost perfect

This mouse is certainly better than my "standard" mouse. I have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, an inherited connective tissue disorder, causing joint and muscle pain. Having my wrist and hand on a more anatomical position is definitely beneficial. I would have given it a 5 star but my hand/wrist is not totally vertical, even with a wrist pad to support my wrist. It also takes a little to get used to the 3rd button to copy and paste rather than the 2nd.

Good for wrist, terrible finish/coating.

This really helps with carpal tunnel and wrist pain.

The finish is terrible. It gets soft just from your hand oils and starts rubbing off after a year or so. I saw another review that said that alcohol would dissolve the finish, so after it started coming off, I used some alcohol on purpose to remove all the loose finish. The slick plastic that is under it actually feels nicer to me than the original finish. I don't know why they felt the need to use such a terrible coating. It's not like there aren't finishes out there that can be in contact with hand oils and not dissolve.

2018 Update: It's still running fine many years later, just "naked" plastic now instead of a matte finish. So it's long lasting, other than the surface finish.

6 hours and no pains yet

I have used this mouse for only about 6 hours. So far, I love the scroll wheel. It eliminates the stress I had with a trackball where I had to keep a button pressed down to scroll up and down a web page. In my limited experience with this product, I am accidentally clicking the buttons above and below the thumb rest by accident. I will get better at using this. Hey, look at the cool photo I took of this thing sitting on my custom Star Wars-themed desk.

The best.

I initially figured the investment was worth it and bought this and loved it. After being dropped on the floor a few too many times it stopped working and I tried to use some cheaper vertical mouses. They hurt my wrists because they weren't truly upright and they didn't leave my hand in a completely neutral, resting position. I ended up buying a second one of these since it was the only mouse I've used that doesn't cause wrist pain. Highly recommended.

1:03

Not horrible, not great...2.5 stars rounded up...

Just a quick video review of the Evoluent Mouse. I discuss some pluses, some minuses and my overall impression of how it works for me.

A point I don't clarify in the video is when my hand feels good (nerve problems aren't flaring), I still prefer to use a normal mouse over this. It's just easier to work with. I'm also ambidextrous a bit, so with a normal mouse, I can use either hand if need be. This mouse is only good for my slightly-dominant, right hand.

Finally $89 (or something near there) is a LOT to pay for a mouse that doesn't entirely fit the bill. It would be a real coin flip whether I would buy it again (for that much money anyway) now that I've worked with it a bit, and I'm not so blown away by it.

3:00

Better than normal mice, but still has some strain; DO NOT use IPA to clean

Update 2011 Aug - Their tech support sucks big time. i had a problem with the cursor flashing busy continuously with the mouse manager running. Their replies were evasive and generic (like try using a piece of white paper; are you running the drivers (obviously; I said the mouse manager was running)), and two weeks later nothing has been solved. They take a long time to followup, and seem to be dragging their heels. I'm downgrading the mouse from 3 to 2 stars.

I've been using it for the past 2 months or so. This is a suggestion that I have:

1. Strain in the fingers

Instead of having the buttons at the side (almost perpendicular to the bow of the mouse), the buttons could be positioned at the front. I noticed that there is still some slight wrist bending as the fingers tap on the mouse buttons at the side. This position causes a different pain. See my uploaded photos.

If the buttons are at the front, the hand would still be in a handshake position, but with a more natural curl. There is less tension if the fingers DO NOT have to straighten.

In addition, there is the advantage of eliminating the predisposition (from years of horizontal mice usage) to use the wrist to move the mouse and use the forearm muscles instead if the buttons are at the front since it appears more difficult to move the wrist when the fingers are in a relaxed curled position.

2. Strain in the palm

Note that the mouse is not really vertical. It has a angle of about 45 degrees. That does causes strain sometimes in the palm. The bottom line is, while the VM reduces wrist strain, it may introduce strain elsewhere.

3. Others

According to Evoluent, they're releasing the VM4 wireless this summer. So you might want to wait for it...

Update May 11 - Do not use isopropyl alochol to clean the Evoluent! The rubberized coating will break down and start to flake off. I used 70% IPA to clean off some oil left by hand and the rubbberized coating started to come off in particles (not peel) like eraser bits. The chrome looking thumb rest also turns black upon contact. The shine is probably soluble in IPA.