Review: Wow Pen Eco

June 17, 2007 | By Jared Howard | 2,725 Views

The Wow Pen Eco is a vertical style mouse, meant to be held like a pen. It’s a pretty radical design considering most people have been using a “traditional” style mouse since before they can remember. The Wow Pen Eco is extremely compact and since it is meant to be gripped like a pen or pencil, using it feels very natural. That’s not to say it doesn’t take a little while to get used to though. The question is can you teach an old mouse new tricks and more importantly, do you want to?

Design

The main reason for the Wow Pen Eco’s vertical design is that it is supposed to help eliminate carpal tunnel strain. It achieves this by forcing the user to hold the mouse with their wrist straight instead of bent like a traditional mouse. Having never personally been a victim of carpal tunnel strain I can’t comment on the validity of those claims however for those of you that have suffered through it, this may be a good option for you to try. The Wow Pen Eco is very easy to hold, very light and compact. This version of the mouse is corded, although they provide a pretty decent length, thin cord. The left and right mouse buttons are positioned where your index finger naturally rests and are concaved like a rocker switch (although the buttons do move independently). It’s a very comfortable design and both buttons are very easily accessible.

To the right of the mouse buttons is a scroll wheel. I found the scroll wheel hard to easily access. When I had a good firm grip on the mouse, the ergonomics of the mouse naturally placed my index finger right on the mouse buttons. To get to the scroll wheel I found I had to loosen my grip on the mouse so it no longer sat firm and flush in my hand. Holding the mouse like that was not nearly as comfortable and did not provide nearly the same cursor accuracy. Since I use the scroll wheel a ton, that was a pretty big deal. To be fair, all hands are different and with all ergonomically designed mice, testing is key to see what is comfortable for YOU personally. By the way, the scroll wheel is also clickable and serves as a third button.

Performance

When I first saw the Wow Pen Eco, with its vertical orientation and pen grip, the first thing that came to mind, naturally, was if it could be a viable, cheap (very cheap) tablet alternative. Now I knew there was no way it would be able to compete with my Wacom Intuos tablet but I was curious to see if it could at least give better control than a mouse in graphics programs like Photoshop and if it would be possible to do any kind of inking (albeit limited). To find out I fired up Photoshop and performed a series of rudimentary tests. First I did a basic tracing test. I took a picture of a car (I didn’t want to use an object too complicated or simple) and traced around it to perform a crop. For anyone that crops a lot in Photoshop, using a tablet compared to a mouse is night and day in terms of the accuracy you can achieve. Unfortunately my results with the Wow Pen were not that much better than with a mouse and in fact a little less accurate in some cases. The main problem is that even though the Wow Pen looks like a pen and is gripped like a pen, it’s not a pen. You can manipulate a pen with your fingers and wrist to a degree without moving your hand which is what provides you that greater accuracy. With the Wow Pen, like a mouse, you have to move your entire hand to move the cursor which leads to inaccuracies, especially during long traces. It’s that exact reason that makes inking, even just a couple of words, completely out of the question. I almost liken it to taking a pen, holding it in a clinched fist, and then trying to write. It’s not pretty. The same goes with trying to draw and it further proves the adage that when it comes to drawing or writing, the pen is mightier than… well pretty much everything.

The Wow Pen Eco uses an optical engine with a resolution of 400 DPI. Coming from my everyday Logitech MX900 which has a resolution of 900 DPI, I could definitely tell the difference. With most mice today starting around 1000 DPI and going all the way up to 2000 DPI (laser mice), the resolution is just too low. According to the Wow Pen website there is a wireless version of the Wow Pen coming out that has an increased resolution of 800 DPI as well as the increased benefit of being wireless. So it is nice to see that improvements are being made to the first generation Wow Pen that will hopefully equate to a better overall package.

Conclusion

Overall I liked the Wow Pen Eco. Nowhere on its website is it marketed as being an alternative solution to a tablet so I am not going to be too critical of its severe short comings there. Having never been a sufferer of carpal tunnel syndrome personally does not mean that it’s not a huge problem faced by many individuals. This could very well be the answer to their prayers. After using the mouse pretty extensively for over a week I can attest that it is extremely comfortable in use. The fact that it is so light and compact makes it a great solution for mobile travelers as well. I am very interested in seeing future generations of the Wow Pen and how the concept can be realized in even better products.

Price: $49.99 or Win It

Won Pen Eco

Rating

Posted in Gadgets, Reviews