ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Vertical mice advertise better ergonomics, but they can trade wrist pain for hand pain.
- Grip, texture, and thumb support matter more than specs.
- The winning vertical mouse was unexpected, and became my new daily driver.
This is like no other mouse review you’ve ever read. While I’ll certainly mention features, I’m not focusing on buttons, DPI, software, or the worst trend in mouse products: RGB lighting. Instead, this is all about reducing pain from heavy mouse work.
Everything beyond pain reduction is secondary. After all, what good are fancy buttons or blinking lights if your wrist has to undergo surgery? Ready? Good. Let’s set the stage.
It’s not unusual for me to spend 12-14 hours a day mousing, six or seven days a week. Most of the time, my wrist is pretty good. But every so often, it starts to hurt. This month, it’s been a bit worse than normal.
I have a simple set of steps to manage this issue. The first is to simply stop mousing. That works for a while. But I have deadlines and, besides, the entire world is at the other end of a mouse click. AI has helped. Better AI speech dictation makes using dictation a practical aspect of computer work.
Wearing tight wrist sport sweatbands helps. I recently bought steel-reinforced wrist braces to reduce the impact of weight lifting on my wrists. I also ice my wrists, wearing or leaning on ice packs for a while in between mousing sessions.
Also: 3 reasons you should use an ergonomic mouse before it’s too late
Then, of course, there are vertical mice. I have never really enjoyed using a vertical mouse, so it’s only been something I’ve turned to when in pain. When I tried again this month, I realized why I haven’t liked using vertical mice. Despite the marketing hype, vertical mice don’t necessarily reduce pain. In fact, the one I was using was actually increasing it.
It’s not just carpal tunnel
We’ve all heard the terms “carpal tunnel” and repetitive strain injury. Repetitive motion can damage your muscles, tendons, nerves, and joints. Carpal tunnel is where the median nerve gets compressed as it goes through a narrow passage in the wrist.
Also: What to do when your mousing wrist hurts
The idea of a vertical mouse is that you rotate your wrist into a position where there is less pressure applied, thereby reducing stress on your wrist. Last summer, I decided to buy the Logitech Lift. I’m a bit of an off-and-on Logitech fanboy. I have their old, original MX Master 3 mouse, which I use constantly. I also use (and you’ll take it from me over my cold dead body) a Logitech K810 keyboard that’s now about 14 years old.
To be fair, the Logitech Lift, along with my other mitigations, did reduce my wrist pain. But I found that it increased the pain in my hand. A lot. The joints on my fingers and my thumb ached terribly after using the Lift for just a few hours.
It turns out that extensive gripping can cause tendonitis and tenosynovitis, conditions that result from inflammation or irritation of the tendons. While using a mouse always requires some gripping, I found that I was applying a lot more gripping pressure when using the Lift than when I used the MX Master.
Also: Exercises may relieve carpal tunnel
I also found a kinematics study about finger use during mousing as well as finger and hand use during computer keyboard use. But I wasn’t able to find any real studies on mouse-lift behavior, also called “clutching.” I did find some anecdotal discussion of mouse lifting while gaming on Reddit, but nothing we could call authoritative.
That said, pay attention as you mouse. If you’re like me, you’ll lift the mouse every few clicks. That means you’re doing that clutching behavior regularly. If the mouse is designed to help improve the lift (ironically, the Logitech Lift is not), you can reduce hand pain.
But if you have to apply an extra degree of grip, you might increase hand pain. As it turns out, most vertical mice require more grip intensity than regular flat mice. You’re effectively trading wrist pain for hand pain. Nobody in the industry is talking about this.
It was this discovery that led me to go down a slightly obsessive mouse-grip rabbit hole. It was rather curious. Perchance, would you like to join me?
For those who want to skip to the good stuff, my new favorite vertical mouse is the Uineer A06, with the ProtoArc EM11 NL as the runner up. I’ll show you why below.
How I judged these mice
I had three solid requirements that helped to define the parameters in this study:
- The mouse I choose has to be wireless.
- It has to support switching between three devices.
- It has to support at least two devices over Bluetooth (the third could be a dongle, if necessary).
- It has to be easy to grip, not require extra grip intensity.
Unfortunately, that last requirement can’t be evaluated just by looking at the product listings on Amazon. But I was able to use ChatGPT Work to identify a set of mice that did meet my first three requirements. In addition to the Lift I already owned, and the Razer that one of ZDNET’s editors kindly sent me, I ordered seven mice directly from Amazon.
Then, I subjected each mouse to a lift test and produced a profile silhouette. It became immediately obvious that most of the vertical mice didn’t account for clutch, because all but two failed the clutch test.
Angles and profiles
This is a photo and silhouette profile of my old faithful, six year old MX Master 3 mouse.
The MX Master 3 is not considered a vertical mouse. Even so, the wrist angle is slightly rotated to about 14 degrees. Note the two minor protrusions on the left and right sides of the mouse.
The one on the left side is more pronounced. It allows the mouse to rest on your thumb, so you don’t have to grip hard to lift. The mouse also has a slight right side protrusion as well. If you look at the cruft in the mouse photo pointed to by the arrow, you can see that’s exactly where the most wear on the mouse surface has occurred.
Also: Logitech MX Master 3S review: The best mouse gets even better
The interesting thing about the MX Master 3 is that while I sometimes get wrist pain, I’ve never had any hand pain of the sort I had when using the Logitech Lift for any amount of time. The difference between those experiences inspired this study. While almost all vertical mice tout the angle of the mousing surface, none of them — absolutely zero — talk about reducing lift grip.
The contenders
1. Logitech Lift
- Wrist angle: 57 degrees
- Available for lefties: Yes
- Connectivity: 3 devices via Bluetooth or receiver
- Buttons: Left/right click, forward/back buttons, wheel button, top button
- Battery: One AA Battery
- Price: $80
- Verdict: Clutch failed
The Logitech Lift was my initial “obvious” choice. I already owned it, having bought it for an earlier wrist pain incident. It did lack some of the features of my beloved MX Master 3, but it seemed like a solid mouse.
Also: Logitech Lift Vertical Ergonomic Mouse, hands on: Compact and comfortable
Then, inexplicably, I found myself dropping it. Worse, because the battery cover is attached magnetically, whenever the mouse fell, the cover would fall off. More than once, I found myself digging through my trash can just to get it to keep working.
Now, notice the profile. It’s effectively straight up and down. There’s nothing to rest on your thumb or other part of your hand when lifting. To maintain a lift, you have to grip fairly hard and then tuck a pinky under the right side of the mouse to hold it up.
Do that a few hundred times a day, and your hand will definitely start to hurt.
2. Logitech MX Vertical Mouse
- Wrist angle: 57 degrees
- Available for lefties: No
- Connectivity: 3 devices via Bluetooth
- Buttons: Left/right click, forward/back buttons, wheel button, top button
- Battery: USB C charging
- Price: $120
- Verdict: Clutch failed
I can’t tell you why this MX Vertical mouse lists for $40 more than the Logitech Lift. The USB charging can’t be that big a value-add. From an ergonomic point of view, this MX vertical mouse doesn’t offer much more than the Lift does, although there is a very slight gravity-supporting curve on the thumb side of the mouse.
Also: Hands-On: Logitech MX Vertical and MX Anywhere 2S Mice
If I had to choose between the Logitech Lift and this MX, I’d choose this. But it still slips through a light grip. It fails the clutch test.
3. Razer Pro Click V2
- Wrist angle: 71 degrees
- Available for lefties: No
- Connectivity: 5 devices, 3 devices via Bluetooth
- Buttons: Left/right click, upper/lower side buttons, wheel button, top button
- Battery: USB C charging
- Price: $120
- Verdict: Clutch failed
The Razer Pro Click V2 has “18-zone lighting with full underglow powered by Razor Chroma RGB.” Because, of course it does. When you turn on the full underglow, you can feel a glorious chromatic aura subconsciously enveloping your hand and wrist, giving you a constant… oh, who am I kidding?
Also: I was not expecting a Razer keyboard to enhance my office productivity – here’s how it did
This device is not ergonomic at all. Just look at that terrible profile. Usually, devices with this much RGB hoo-ha are targeted at gamers, but gamers are even more likely to lift their mice constantly than regular productivity users are. This thing has a little vertical rise, and no thumb hold at all.
Major fail.
4. Micropack Ergonomic Vertical
- Wrist angle: 14 degrees
- Available for lefties: No
- Connectivity: 2 devices via Bluetooth, one dongle
- Buttons: Left/right click, forward/back buttons, wheel button, top button
- Battery: USB C charging
- Price: $25
- Verdict: Not vertical, good clutch
I picked up the Micropack Ergonomic because it was advertised as a vertical mouse. I thought that the photos might just not have represented the wrist angle clearly. Nope, this is not a vertical mouse. I think the company even knows it, because there’s absolutely no mention of wrist angle anywhere on their product listing.
I used my profile silhouette and Photoshop’s ruler to ascertain that it’s basically identical to the 14 degree angle of the Logitech MX Master 3.
It’s a shame, because this device has a very nice thumb indentation and a set of finger ridges on the fingers side of the mouse. If it was actually a steeper angle with the same ergonomic considerations designed in, it might have been a contender.
5. Tecknet Ergonomic Mouse with Jiggler
- Wrist angle: 52 degrees
- Available for lefties: No
- Connectivity: 5 devices, 3 devices via Bluetooth
- Buttons: Left/right click, upper/lower side buttons, wheel button, top button
- Battery: USB C charging
- Price: $30
- Verdict: Too slippery
I was convinced this Tecknet ergonomic mouse was going to be a home run, just look at that profile. If anything was going to provide thumb grip support, it would be this mouse. The company is particularly honest about the benefits of the vertical mouse, stating “A natural and comfortable feel that reduces muscle strain by 10%.” I’ve never seen any source describe a vertical mouse as reducing strain by 10%, but hey, it’s a stat.
Plus, the mouse comes with a “built-in dither mode.” I know I spend a lot of time dithering when I should be writing, and now the mouse can help. I kid. I kid.
Actually, it comes with a jiggler. These are designed to help indicate that you’re still there, whether that’s to convince your boss you haven’t left your screen or to convince an app not to log you out. In some ways, you could call it an ergonomic feature, because it does allow you to keep your hands off the mouse.
Also: I tried dozens of mice, and the Logitech MX is my clear favorite – here’s why
This is where I learned that physical ergonomic profile isn’t the only factor in whether a mouse gives good clutch. It turns out that the texture of the mouse matters. Quite a lot, actually.
Unfortunately, this mouse has one fatal flaw. It’s slippery. The finger side has no grippiness at all. It’s almost like the surface was specifically optimized to be extra smoooth. But the price of that is you have to apply an additional level of grip intensity to clutch this thing when lifting. Fail.
6. Uineer A9 Vertical Ergonomic Mouse
- Wrist angle: 40 degrees
- Available for lefties: No
- Connectivity: 2 devices via Bluetooth, one dongle
- Buttons: Left/right click, forward/back buttons, wheel button, top button
- Battery: 1 C battery
- Price: $20
- Verdict: Nice thumb curve, way to slippy, clutch failed
Unfortunately, this Uineer A9 mouse fails exactly the same way as the Tecknet above. This mouse also has excellent thumb lift support with a swooping curving profile. But it too was very slippery, so even though it looked like it would be an ideal solution, it fell through.
Oh, but it also has “Stunning seven-color ambient light boosts visual experience,” so there’s that. At least it will help you find the mouse when you drop it. Fail.
7. Seenda MOU-302
- Wrist angle: 57 degrees
- Available for lefties: No
- Connectivity: 2 devices via Bluetooth, one dongle
- Buttons: Left/right click, upper/lower side buttons, wheel button, top button
- Battery: USB C charging
- Price: $20
- Verdict: Nice thumb curve, a little grippy, a little slippy
Let’s wrap up our study with the Seenda MOU-32. The Seenda is the opposite of the Tecknet, in that mouse advertises reducing muscle strain by 10%, while the Seenda proclaims “90% reduce wrist fatigue.” Is that 90% of users report reduced wrist fatigue, or will you reduce wrist fatigue by 90%? It’s always nice when health-related products make claims that are neither supported nor clear.
It also has an odd little volume wheel at the top of the mouse. That wheel is part of the weirdly unergonomic story of this mouse. You can’t actually turn the wheel with your thumb while holding the mouse. Because, anatomy. You have to turn the wheel with your other hand, or take your hand off the mouse to twist the wheel.
In any case, I had to disqualify the mouse even though it had a solid profile for clutch lifts. That’s because it was both grippy and slippy. Light lifts held briefly, but wound up being slippery. Fail.
The winners
Going into this, I was willing to spend whatever it took to reduce my wrist pain and gain the productivity i needed. As it turns out, the two mice that made it into the finals are both under $30. Both of the mice I’m going to show you passed my lift tests with flying colors. Both have thumb supporting profiles that assist the lift. And both are grippy enough to help with the clutch.
In the end, the decision came down to which I liked using more for an extended period of time.
8. ProtoArc EM11 NL – Finalist
- Wrist angle: 58 degrees
- Available for lefties: No
- Connectivity: 3 devices via Bluetooth
- Buttons: Left/right click, forward/back buttons, wheel button, top button
- Battery: USB C charging
- Price: $26
- Verdict: Good clutch
The very first time I wrapped my hand around the ProtoArc, I let out an audible sigh. My hand felt so comfortable on this mouse. It fit perfectly, like a glove. Thumb support was great. Clutch support and lifting effort didn’t require any extra grip.
I found no real reason for the slot down the middle of it, but it has a really nice Tron-like design I really grooved on. It was comfortable to use, and I recommend it. But then I tried…
9. Uineer A06 – Winner
- Wrist angle: 59 degrees
- Available for lefties: No
- Connectivity: 3 devices via Bluetooth
- Buttons: Left/right click, forward/back buttons, wheel button, top button
- Battery: USB C charging
- Price: $27
- Verdict: Good clutch, the one I chose
This is the second Unineer I tried. The first failed miserably, with a very slippery surface. So I had little hope for this one. To be clear, this is the A06, the one with a flat top, not the shiny curved top.
It’s not nearly as cool-looking as the ProtoArc. And, it doesn’t give me that “aah” feeling when I wrap my hand around it. But it has perfect thumb lift support and it’s ideally grippy.
But here’s where this stood out. Unlike the ProtoArc, which made me very aware I was using a unique mouse, and which started to be a bit uncomfortable after a few hours, I’ve been using the A06 for days without any discomfort. I find I pick it up and use it instead of my MX Master 3. I don’t feel like I’m diminished in functionality in any way.
Also: This portable keyboard is a must-carry for work travel (and it’s 25% off)
By the way, most of these mice say their side buttons won’t work on Macs. That is not strictly true. Most don’t have Mac-specific software. But I hooked up these mice to BetterTouchTool, a $15 Mac app that lets you customize your button behaviors. Now, the side buttons work well.
For comfort after hours of use, for easy thumb and grip lifting without grip strain, for blending into my daily work flow without discomfort, and for being nicely affordable, I declare the Unineer A06 the winner. It is my new daily driver.
Final thoughts for mouse vendors
Mouse vendors, particularly Logitech, could do a much better job. I do have to credit the brand with offering the one mouse in the three-device wireless category for left-handed individuals. About 10% of the population prefer to use their left hands for certain tasks. 10% of mouse users would certainly be a viable market. Yet the attention is sparse.
Second, some vendors merely phoned in the idea of ergonomics and a vertical mouse. Micropack just used a regular mouse angle and slapped the label “vertical” on it.
Also: My new favorite PC accessory has infinite battery life and a host of productivity features
I found I was really surprised how little attention vendors paid to either clutch action (low grip lifting) or even basic ergonomics. Razer added all sorts of bells and whistles (including an “RGB underglow”), but couldn’t be bothered to engineer the mouse package for real hand comfort.
This is not rocket science. I’ll bet that every employee of every mouse vendor uses a mouse. So why couldn’t they just look at their mice and their employees’ hands and pay attention to how the devices are used?
So, here’s my advice to mouse vendors: if you want to win in the vertical mouse arena, focus on:
- A wrist angle above 60%.
- A thumb overhang to reduce grip requirement.
- Ridges and texture to increase grippiness under the fingers.
- Three wireless connections.
- More useful buttons like the MX Master 3 has (but the other Logitech mice don’t).
- Variations for left handers. With 350 million mice sold each year, 10% of that is 35 million. That’s a multi-billion dollar market in just mice for left-handed individuals.
Don’t spend your time worrying about fancy lighting or other bells and whistles. People will spend on ergonomic mice when their livelihoods depend on it. While I appreciated spending just $27 on my new mouse, you don’t need to do a run to the bottom. Build an insanely great ergonomic mouse designed to really help reduce wrist pain and you’ll have a winner.
Oh, and Apple: don’t you think it’s time to redesign that albatross of a mouse you’ve been shipping for oh-so-long now?
What’s your favorite vertical mouse? Let us know in the comments below.
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